With the world's eyes on World Cup football starting last week, the other football may be a bit overshadowed. Fortunately, the league never sleeps and the drama of the off-season offers a good build up for September. The chatter online has Cleveland Brown's fans making their arguments for who would be best suited to start against Pittsburgh in the season opener. Barring a fantastic and unlikely performance in preseason, Manziel will still be sitting out the first game as I have suggested before.
This opinion was solidified on Thursday as Cleveland's head coach Mike Pettine declared Brian Hoyer first-team quarterback for training camp in the end of July. Pairing him with the first-team offense doesn't give Johnny Manziel much of a chance to get in sync with the starters and even less ready to face the Steelers.
That doesn't mean Manziel won't get a chance to play with the starters. Just like OTAs and minicamp, he will be getting reps with the first-team. This just does not seem like enough practice for a rookie quarterback to be fully prepared but it isn't completely out of the question.
Remember weeks ago, Browns' G.M. Ray Farmer said that Hoyer had a "substantial margin" over Manziel. Recently Pettine says that that lead "isn't insurmountable."
It seems as though the gap between the two has closed a bit but Hoyer is still on top for the foreseeable future.
I believe that the Browns have a clear idea of who they want to start the beginning of the season and it isn't the newbie. Johnny is an investment and they realize it takes time for an investment to pay off. All this conjecture keeps the team in the public eye and that is exactly what they have lacked in years. The most tweeted team in the last month has been the Cleveland Browns and they undoubtedly don't want to change that.
