The Reality for Johnny Manziel: NFL Is a Business, and Not a Forgiving One

I hope Johnny Manziel uses his time in rehab to get better as a person, and I hope he continues that process into the future. I want to see him healthy, and I want to see him play ball.  

But understand this about the NFL: To the Cleveland Browns, none of the stories of partying really matter. What matters to them is whether or not Manziel can play quarterback at an NFL level and win games in the 2015 season and beyond. Nothing else.

While that may sound insensitive given the situation Manziel is dealing with, we have to be realistic about the business side of this league. Players, coaches and front-office personnel are paid to win. That's it. The rest is just a BS narrative.

Look at New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski. The guy likes to enjoy life. Does it matter? Of course not. Gronkowski is the best tight end in the game. He can beat the top safeties in the league and catch touchdowns from Tom Brady. He's a proven, established player who just tore up the NFL's best defense on the Super Bowl stage. That's what matters.

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Hey, party all you want, Gronk. Let loose a little and enjoy celebrating that title.

Gronkowski's lifestyle outside of the facility in New England is cool and accepted because the guy has the type of football character on the field that anyone would want on their squad. He consistently produces.

Manziel, on the other hand, didn't deliver results during his limited playing time this season. He didn't take advantage of the opportunity to start late in the year when the Browns coaching staff sat veteran Brian Hoyer, and an injury against the Carolina Panthers clouded opinions of him even more.

So the partying became the story, and now we wait to see if there will be a second shot for a 22-year-old who was a first-round pick less than a year ago. That's probably not fair, but then again, what do you expect in a league that is focused 100 percent on the game tape coaches evaluate every week?

Teams aren't sentimental. If he were a late-round pick, they'd just cut him. Goodbye. That's simple. But the players a team has invested more in, the top picks, get more time to figure it out. We all know that. More chances, more opportunities to make it right and develop with a goal to produce like a pro.

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Not being in the locker room in Cleveland limits my ability to form an informed opinion of Manziel as a pro, from his game prep to his film-study habits, but we all have heard the talk there as well.

Maybe he will return after rehab with a more dedicated outlook, because every player has to love this job to succeed. That's the truth. It's not easy, and I have seen plenty of guys with legit talent wash out early because they didn't put in the work. 

You want to stay in the league? Then act like a pro. That's advice I heard a long time ago, advice every young player hears.

Beer, liquor, weed, chew. Maybe some prescription pain pills. Whatever. Pro ball players have vices just like anyone else. They aren't robots. And most young guys like to party a little bit. Friday nights during the regular season. Sunday nights after games. Any night, really, during the offseason.

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The older vets move on from that stuff. Priorities change. They focus on wives, families, longevity in the league. They drop off the regular Friday night roster that hits up the clubs and bars. They leave behind the days of recovering from a hangover before practice with a bottle of Pedialyte, two Tylenol, four Advil and 20 minutes in the sauna to sweat out that booze.

But for those young players who like to roll into the facility after a long night with swollen eyes, all that matters is if they answer the bell on Sundays. That's the reality of this league. Show up on time, act like a pro in the facility, produce and, well, then you can party all you want.

No one in the locker room cares what guys do once they clock out after practice. They don't. These are grown men. Professionals. Like their teams, they only care if you can't produce or lack the football character necessary to succeed in the NFL—if you become a distraction.

That wasn't a problem for Manziel at Texas A&M. He was the best player on the field every Saturday. The guy made ridiculous plays. He won a Heisman, too. He also liked to have a good time off the field. So what? He was the most exciting player in the country.

Sure, the narrative existed throughout the draft process that this lifestyle would follow him to the NFL. But it didn't truly become a story until Manziel failed to produce when given the opportunity to play this season.

It wasn't the transition process from a spread offense or the limited reps that would beat up the majority of rookie quarterbacks. Nah, it was the late nights and the partying that became the focus. Manziel followed that up with a late arrival for a treatment session toward the end of the season.

Rookies can't be late for anything, especially the ones who don't produce. That's trouble with the vets. When a negative pattern of behavior for a rookie parallels a lack of production on the field, it becomes a problem with team management. 

A true "business of winning." That's the NFL.

Seven-year NFL veteran Matt Bowen is an NFL National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @MattBowen41.