Johnny Manziel Gets Chance to Come Full Circle with 'TNF' Start vs. Bengals

It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie.

A brash, young player enters the NFL after starring in college amid great fanfare, only to continually encounter obstacles, many of his own making. In his first NFL start, said youngster gets his hat handed to him by one of the team's most heated rivals.

Then, the following season, that young player gets his shot at redemption and...

We won't have to wait much longer to see how the flick ends. On Thursday night, Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel will make the fourth start of his NFL career against the same team he made the first start.

And at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, how Manziel fares against the undefeated Cincinnati Bengals could determine whether the current Browns regime views him as the team's quarterback of the future or just the latest in a never-ending series of bad draft picks.

Manziel at least has this going for him: Things can't get much worse than they did the last time he took the field against Cincinnati. To say that Week 15 start in Cleveland was a debacle is an insult to debacles.

In a 30-0 whitewashing, Manziel completed 10 of 18 passes for 80 yards. He threw a pair of interceptions, was sacked three times and posted a 27.3 passer rating.

The Bengals made it no secret they weren't at all enamored with "Johnny Football's" brash personality. Or the fame they felt he hadn't earned.

As Cincinnati defensive tackle Domata Peko told ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, "This ain't college. This is the NFL. You have grown men that are going to be chasing for you, not college kids."

Several times during the game, Bengals players flashed Manziel's "money" sign after making plays. Defensive end Wallace Gilberry was one of the culprits, telling Fowler, "He kind of brought that on himself. He's a great athlete, a good quarterback, but today was more about us than him."

If there was any shine left on Manziel from his Heisman-winning glory days at Texas A&M, the Bengals knocked it off. As Browns head coach Mike Pettine sullenly said after the game, "[Manziel] didn't play well. Looked like a rookie, played like a rookie."

Of course, a lot has changed for Manziel since then, both on and off the field.

Manziel's partying ways in 2014 gave way to a 10-week stint in rehab. Constant off-field stories last year gave way to relative calm this year.

Yes, there was an incident in October involving a public argument with his girlfriend in which Manziel admitted to drinking. But as Ryan Wilson of CBS Sports reported at the time, police determined no laws had been broken, and no charges were filed.

Compared to his rookie year, that's crickets.

There were changes on the field as well. When Manziel took the field for an injured Josh McCown in Week 1, an offseason spent doing more practicing and less partying, more time in the film room and less in "da club," appeared to pay off.

Was Manziel suddenly Tom Brady? No. But he appeared much more comfortable in the pocket. His mechanics looked markedly better. And as a result, so did his throws.

The numbers in that game weren't great (13-of-24, 182 yards, one touchdown, three turnovers), but the improvement was there.

Year	Comp. %	Yds./Comp.	TD	INT	Rating
2014	51.4	9.7	0	2	42.0
2015	56.0	14.0	3	1	93.2

Then came a Week 2 start against the Tennessee Titans. Manziel only attempted 15 passes in the game, but he tossed a pair of touchdown passes and posted a passer rating of 133.9.

Most importantly, the Browns won the game.

Jason Miller/Getty Images

After that performance, it was a little surprising Pettine went back to McCown the following week. But whereas Manziel the rookie may have groused and pouted, Manziel the second-year pro took it in stride. He bided his time.

And now that time has come.

This time around, Pettine told Albert Breer of NFL.com his confidence in Manziel is just like the quarterback's mechanics—greatly improved:

"

He's got some stuff to be cleaned up, but if you'd asked me this a year ago, I would've been like, 'It's a great mystery; I have no idea where this guy is gonna be.' And if I were to handicap it, I'd maybe be at 50-50 with this guy, and that'd be generous. This year, I'm a lot more confident that if you surround him with the right people, he can be successful.

He was just a lot less consistent last year; there were good days and there were bad days. This year, he's into it. I think he knows. He said all the right things when he got out of rehab and talked about it, how he felt like he let everybody down. He knows he has a long way to go and it's a process, but he said that. That was always our thing with Johnny: He said the right things, but then he didn't necessarily do them. Now, that's different.

"

Mind you, the Hollywood ending—in which Manziel leads the Browns to an upset win over the big, bad Bengals, snatches his cheerleader girlfriend from the sidelines and rides off into the sunset on a Harley—isn't likely Thursday.

The Browns don't have cheerleaders. They don't let Harleys on the field at NFL games. And there's a reason the Bengals are 7-0 for the first time in franchise history. They have an improved quarterback all their own, only Andy Dalton is an MVP candidate.

Never mind a defense featuring one of the NFL's best front fours that ranks tied for eighth in the league with 20 sacks.

Brett Carlsen/Getty Images

Still, Manziel doesn't have to win the battle to win the war. If he plays well against the Bengals, avoids mistakes and just keeps the Browns in it, it will be a victory of sorts. Maybe not over his opponent but over his detractors and that disastrous first start.

Do that, and the Browns are going to be more likely to consider letting Manziel start a few more games in what's shaping up as another lost season in Cleveland. They would be less likely to use what's also shaping up as a high first-round pick in next year's draft on a quarterback.

Do that, and Manziel might just get that Hollywood ending one day after all.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter, @IDPSharks.