In case you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last week, Johnny Manziel partied in Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend AND THE WORLD STOPPED SPINNING ON ITS AXIS.
Apparently, this was the biggest event to happen in not just the sports world, but the entire solar system as well. It was certainly important enough to draw mutliple SportsCenter segments featuring people reporting on and yelling about a guy in his early 20s at a Vegas pool party.
I mean, just look at Johnny Manziel and all the serious implications of what happened in Las Vegas…
https://twitter.com/steakNstiffarms/status/470367825769816064
As hard as it is to believe, Johnny Manziel did not break into Mike Tyson’s mansion and steal his tiger. Nor did he pull off a multi-million dollar heist with the Rat Pack. Nor did he join the Griswold family and change his name to Nick Papagiorgio. Nor did he channel any other movie inspired by Vegas hijinks. He went to a pool party, like a lot of other 20-somethings.
Interestingly enough, one of those 20-somethings just happens to be a Cleveland sportswriter. Ari Wasserman writes about Ohio State athletics for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and he also happens to be a 20-something who took the holiday weekend to hang out with friends at a Las Vegas pool party. And he had a lot better perspective on the matter than any talking head or former Browns QB because he was actually there:
I was there with nine of my closest friends who fly in to Vegas annually from across the country for Memorial Day. We rented a private table and racked up a $4,000 bar tab, enough to temporarily stop my friend’s heart before he miraculously awoke to dance during the Kendrick show.
We got upgraded to a table right in front of the stage before the concert. Manziel was next to the DJ booth about 20 yards away, and a handful of my friends jumped onto the table and did his famous “Pay Me” gesture with their hands. He looked, smiled and nodded while returning the gesture.
Manziel likes the spotlight. And he got it in Vegas. He had a blast.
And somehow people are confused by why Manziel would go there?
I’m a 26-year-old professional, and I promise you that the whole pool knew I was having a great time. If I could go back tomorrow, I would. I’ll have to wait until July instead.
It’s not that I don’t understand the difference between Manziel and me. He’s trying to make it in the NFL, and that requires being in great shape and having a vast understanding of the Browns’ offense.
But do you all understand why Manziel is talked about so much? Sure, his on-the-field accomplishments are impressive, but the former Heisman Trophy winner is who he is because he hangs out with Drake, has a million pictures with females floating around the Internet and he likes to party.
And if you like to party, there’s no better place in the world to be on Memorial Day Weekend than Las Vegas.
Whether Manziel makes it in the NFL will ultimately be up to him. But if there’s anything that everyone universally agrees on, it’s that Manziel has a deep, burning desire to be the best and to win.
That existed in college.
He partied in college.
He won in college.
So quit worrying about whether he had a few drinks in Las Vegas during his time off.
I promise you our weekend was more eventful than his, and here I am. … Writing.
Let him get back to work, too.
It’s insane to think that the sports media world can get caught up in something so silly and pointless as a holiday weekend pool party and give the impression that it’s something that actually matters. Honestly, does anyone think if the Browns go 4-12 this season and Manziel struggles that it will be because he had one too many jello shots in Las Vegas during May?!?! It’s pure insanity. How many other young professionals were in Las Vegas over Memorial Day weekend and are back at their day jobs without it turning into a full-blown national crisis?
The fact that it takes a sportswriter who was actually there to calmly explain the idea behind “holiday weekend Vegas vacation” to his colleagues in the sports media is really something. It’s a troubling sign for the monster ManzielMania will become when the season actually begins.
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