Johnny Manziel, Cleveland Browns Enter Crucial Game Against Seattle Seahawks

After this weekend, Alabama won't be considered the biggest game of Johnny Manziel's career.

This weekend, Manziel travels with the Cleveland Browns as the team's starter. They will journey to Washington, where the Seattle Seahawks lie in wait. The Seahawks, with one of the league's most intimidating defenses, have a recent track record of feasting on quarterbacks who are more experienced and more talented than Manziel.

In truth, this game shouldn't be important for Manziel. The Browns should be entering this game with a firm idea of who their young quarterback is and what he can be. Instead, they're still uncertain.

Manziel should be entering this game with 13 starts on the season. Instead, it's just his fifth. Head coach Mike Pettine has mismanaged his quarterbacks this season, buying into the misguided idea that his team was ready to contend for the AFC North.

Pettine gave Josh McCown the starter's role in training camp and entering the regular season. Then he gave it back to him as soon as he could after McCown returned from a Week 1 injury. Pettine also gave a start to Austin Davis, so the most games that Manziel can start this season is seven.

Seven starts to evaluate a quarterback isn't a lot. It's not simply a matter of hindsight to say that the Browns should have started Manziel this year. It was clear before the season even began. Manziel, and their future, should have been the priority of those running the franchise.

If Manziel had 13 starts already this year, the Browns would already know if they were going to enter the offseason in need of a quarterback or with someone they knew they could tie themselves to. Instead, Manziel needs to perform now.

He has to go into Seattle, play against one of the toughest defenses in the NFL and give the Browns enough reasons to believe in him.

Manziel didn't play well against the San Francisco 49ers last week. His numbers were impressive, but there were too many negative plays against a defense that didn't play well on the day. The 49ers at home is a matchup where your mistakes won't always be punished, but the same can't be said for playing in Seattle.

The Seahawks have been obliterating teams lately. Since losing to the Arizona Cardinals at home in Week 10, only the Pittsburgh Steelers have offered any kind of resistance, and the Seahawks won that game relatively comfortably in the end, 39-30.

Over the past two weeks, the Seahawks have hit their stride.

Despite not being favored against the Minnesota Vikings in Minnesota, the Seahawks were able to run away with the game by a score of 38-7. The only touchdown the Vikings scored came on a kick return in the second half when it had long been decided as a contest.

Adrian Peterson was unable to get going against the Seahawks defensive front, while the pressure the front four created swallowed Teddy Bridgewater and the Vikings passing game.

Last week, the Seahawks followed up one blowout victory with another. This time it was the Baltimore Ravens who lost by a score of 35 to 6. The Ravens were actually in a similar situation to the Browns because they were playing with a backup quarterback.

The Seahawks did that to the Ravens in their own stadium. Coming home off the back of those two dominant road victories should have the Seahawks defense in a ravenous mood.

Head coach Pete Carroll's defense won't look to confuse and manipulate Manziel into making mistakes. It will simply rely on the quality of its coverage and the ability of its pass-rushers to create pressure. How Manziel reacts to that pressure will determine how effective he can be.

Manziel didn't face much pressure last week. A lot of the pressure he did face he created on his own by not showing discipline in the pocket.

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One of the main concerns about the quarterback when he came out of Texas A&M was his ability to see the field. Manziel wasn't a refined pocket passer in college, he didn't stay disciplined in his reads and make sure he gave himself every opportunity to throw the ball.

Instead, his natural instinct was to run after a moment or two in the pocket. While he has improved in this area somewhat, there were still some alarming plays last week.

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As they did often in this game, the 49ers defense relied on a three-man pass rush to get to Manziel. Typically, when you use three-man rushes in your game plan, it's because you think the opponents' offensive line is that weak or you expect the quarterback to beat himself with the time he is given.

Manziel beat himself.

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The young quarterback is initially patient at the top of his drop when he has time and space in the pocket. He cycles through his reads from right to left quickly before settling for a moment. Eventually, some pressure arrives from the middle of the pocket.

Manziel is able to easily skip past the arriving defender, but it's at this point that he has dropped his eyes.

He could have skipped past the defender while staying in position to throw the ball and keeping his eyes downfield. Instead, he hunched, dropped his eyes toward the floor and turned to run backward out of the pocket. Meanwhile, down the left sideline, he had a defender running wide open as the 49ers blew a coverage.

This wasn't a first-read throw or a blatantly obvious option, but considering the lack of pressure on the quarterback in the pocket, it's something he should recognize. Manziel's panic turned a potential 85-yard touchdown throw into an 11-yard sack.

While a disappointing play from the quarterback and not one that inspires any confidence, this wasn't an egregious mistake. Manziel's egregious mistake came on his interception.

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Manziel made two major mistakes on his interception. He turned around and ran backward out of the pocket unnecessarily, and he threw the ball back across his body, floating it to the middle of the field for an easy interception.

As the above image shows, there was a third major mistake that couldn't be seen on the broadcast angle.

The quarterback's first read was the wide receiver who ran to the flat. He even made a quick pump fake toward the receiver before bringing his eyes back infield. Manziel looked directly at his wide-open tight end down the seam, but he never threw the ball.

Instead, he panicked, turned around and ran away from pressure that wasn't so overwhelming that he wouldn't have been able to throw the ball. Having already used the pump fake to set up the seam route, it was a bizarre action from the second-year player.

It was this play that made Manziel react by hitting a tablet on his head on the sideline.

These are the kinds of errors that were prevalent in Manziel's play in college, but they are also the kinds of errors that could potentially be worked through over an extended period of time. The Browns may have Manziel under contract for the next two years, but coaching staffs and front offices rarely get a second chance at drafting a quarterback.

With that in mind, it is shocking that the Browns are set to enter the 2016 offseason with so little exposure to Manziel. He doesn't have time to work through these kinks.

Manziel is going to have to play well in Seattle and avoid making too many disastrous mistakes for the franchise to sell itself on passing on a quarterback in the upcoming offseason. If you have to pick one game where you need to impress with your technical ability as a quarterback, in Seattle against the Seahawks is last on the list.