Johnny Manziel Shoving a Grad Assistant at Spring Practice? That's Just Football

Brent Zwerneman of the Houston Chronicle reported that Johnny Manziel shoved a graduate assistant coach at practice this weekend, and as expected, the story exploded. Despite Zwerneman's attempt to calm the situation, terming it as a heat-of-the-moment ordeal, people let the story build into more.

As Spencer Hall over at Every Day Should Be Saturday satirized:

If you read the tweets and follow the story down the rabbit hole many folks want to take it, that is exactly how it feels. The great Johnny Manziel stabbed a grad assistant with a trident! That kid needs to check his ego at the door!

Let's take a step back. This is not a coach and a player fighting. It is not a reverse Woody Hayes situation, where the player is assaulting a coach. This is not Percy Harvin putting hands on Billy Gonzalez, choking him and slamming him to the ground, allegedly.

No, this is an offensive guy having a bad day and a defensive coach celebrating in his face.

"

@jamesatl1 GA = Graduate Assistant, in this case on the defensive side of the ball.

— Brent Zwerneman (@BrentZwerneman) March 23, 2013"

If you have ever been at a football practice in spring then you know the two sides, offense and defense, get after one another all the time. That is the reason fights break out between offensive and defensive linemen. That's why linebackers snatch up tight ends and running backs during 9-on-7. That is why the corners and the wide receivers are jaw jacking and pushing one another.

And that is why defensive and offensive coaches get into it with one another, as well.

Yes, that is correct, folks. Tight end coaches go after linebacker coaches when their guys wall off a crosser and gets, what the tight end coach thinks, too physical. Quarterbacks coaches go off on players and their coaches when the defensive ends come too close running the hump during blitz period.

They get in each other's faces, they push and they have to get separated. That's a part of spring football a lot of places, because everyone is out there trying to win each play.

Football is a game where tempers flare, especially at practice. While there is a line you don't cross, plenty of folks belly up to it in an exceptional, and acceptable, fashion.

This is one of those instances.

In other words, find another reason to hate Johnny Manziel, because this is not it. In fact, the only reason this may grow into an issue that must be addressed publicly by Texas A&M is because a lot of folks are trying to make it one.

Until you hear otherwise, take this event for exactly what it is: competitive fire. One guy cheering because his boys made a play; one guy upset because he's had a bad day and who does not need the cheering going on in his face.

If you are Texas A&M, that's what this is. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now, let's shake hands and get on to film so that Manziel can figure out why he threw those three picks.