After 13 Games on the Bench, Browns Need to Show Patience with Johnny Manziel

We all know what happened.

The Cleveland Browns benched incumbent starting quarterback Brian Hoyer after four bad games and three losses, going instead with rookie Johnny Manziel under center in Week 15 against the Cincinnati Bengals.

After a week of hype—including Browns safety Donte Whitner calling Manziel's offense "a nightmare" to defend while receiver Josh Gordon added that Manziel had "what we need right now to move forward and pull off these last three wins"—it was time for the 2014 first-round draft pick to make his debut.

And it was a disaster.

Manziel completed just 10 of 18 passes against the Bengals for 80 yards. He threw no touchdowns, had two interceptions and rushed only five times for 13 yards. He was sacked three times. He had a quarterback rating of 27.3. And the Browns lost, 30-0.

Immediately, analysts pointed fingers in Manziel's direction. Bleacher Report's Mike Freeman called Manziel's first start "putrid" and said he looked "like a less athletic Tim Tebow and a less accurate JaMarcus Russell." NFL Films' Greg Cosell, for Yahoo Sports' Shutdown Corner, said Manziel "has an average arm," adding: 

"

The problem is Manziel didn't want to stay in the pocket. He lacks any feel for it, has almost no pocket patience and discipline and is quick to move and play "random football" outside of the structure of the offense. ...

... Manziel isn't ready to play with patience in the pocket. Can he get there with experience? Maybe. But he has a lot to overcome to be a high-level NFL quarterback. He's a small quarterback with average arm strength and almost no pocket skills and discipline at this point.

"

The criticism of Manziel, and of the Browns' decision to start him, has been a constant din in the days following the loss. And it makes sense: The week before Manziel's start saw the Browns paint him as some sort of savior for their languishing offense—and he proved to be anything but.

But that doesn't make Manziel a bust. It doesn't mean he'll get better either, but this was just one game. That's what seems to be lost in this entire discussion. One game. One start. After 13 weeks of sitting on the sidelines.

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

It's hard to have perspective about Manziel, however. He was polarizing among fans and the media alike before even declaring for the NFL draft. Opinions on Manziel—either for or against him—were fully formed before he ever took the field against the Bengals.

Yes, Manziel's style is unconventional and hard to translate to the NFL. Yes, he struggled to maintain a clean pocket against the Bengals, didn't throw accurately and made poor decisions, and his mechanics—primarily his footwork—were a mess.

But what else could be expected from a rookie? Even some of the most celebrated quarterbacks of our day struggled in their first starts of their respective rookie seasons. Manziel's debut is no different, in terms of his struggles, even if his particular style of struggle was different from the pocket passers who preceded him:

Player	Draft/Year	Comp.	Att.	Comp.%	Yds.	TD	INT
Eli Manning	2004, 1-1	17	37	45.95%	162	1	2
Ben Roethlisberger	2004, 1-11	12	22	54.55	163	1	1
Alex Smith	2005, 1-1	9	23	39.13%	74	0	4
Jay Cutler	2006, 1-11	10	21	47.62%	143	2	2
Matt Ryan	2008, 1-3	9	13	69.23%	161	1	0
Joe Flacco	2008, 1-18	15	29	51.72%	129	0	0
Matt Stafford	2009, 1-1	16	37	43.24%	205	0	3
Andrew Luck	2012, 1-1	23	45	51.11%	309	1	3
Johnny Manziel	2014, 1-22	10	18	55.56%	80	0	2

Take out the mentions of his size, or of his predilection to scramble when the pocket collapses, and what you see is a criticism common to rookie quarterbacks. There is no way to adapt to the speed of an NFL game aside from playing in one, and getting comfortable means being thrown to the fire over and over until something clicks.

The thing is, what if it doesn't click for Manziel? What if the supposed quarterback of the future is just yet another could-have-been on the long list of Browns draft picks?

We don't know.

What we do know is that Browns head coach Mike Pettine thinks three games (and the one quarter Manziel played against the Buffalo Bills) will point the Browns in the right direction in terms of what they have (or don't have) in Manziel going forward.

Speaking to the media Monday (via Mary Kay Cabot of The Plain Dealer), Pettine said:

"

We'll have a sense [of Manziel's future], but it's something that I don't think it's going to confirm one way or the other the opinion. He could hit it out of the park the next two and there'll still be doubts. He could not play very well the next two, there'd be a ton of doubts. 

We're going to see him play and then see how it goes from there. We can't look back and say we wish we had played him more games now that we're for all intents and purposes close to being eliminated, so we'll see.

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But Manziel's future will not be determined by his bad debut against Cincinnati, no matter how many people have declared his nascent career already a bust or that he will never grasp what it takes to play professional quarterback.

Developing a young quarterback, especially an unorthodox one like Manziel, takes time. It can take a whole season, and that's not a luxury Manziel has been given while sitting behind Hoyer for most of the year.

We do know Manziel looked terrible in Week 15, but we also know the entire Browns team looked bad in that game. The defense collapsed. The run game, suffering ever since center Alex Mack went down with a knee injury, gained just 53 yards on 17 attempts. The offense was also without receiver Miles Austin, their premier chains mover on third downs.

The change to Manziel did not cure the things that had been ailing the offense under Hoyer. Chalk it up to misguided optimism to think that it would. But it's not misguided to think Manziel can improve with more playing time.

Comfort is the No. 1 thing a rookie quarterback needs to have before everything else falls into place. The transition from college to the NFL is a difficult one, regardless of the quarterback's pre-existing skill set. There is more to be seen from Manziel before he can be declared a bust or the Browns' hope for the future.

The Browns have patience; perhaps we should all follow suit.