Former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel recently appeared on the Club Shay Shay podcast with Shannon Sharpe in a tell-all interview discussing what went wrong in his NFL career. One of his complaints happened to be about his treatment from former teammate Brian Hoyer, which Hoyer addressed during an appearance on Good Morning Football on Tuesday.
Manziel took the majority of the blame for his NFL career quickly flaming out, citing his partying and lack of preparation for his failures. He also claimed that Hoyer “took advantage” of his inexperience as an NFL quarterback to take the starting job from him in his rookie season.
“My quarterback room was not a home for me because of Brian Hoyer,” Manziel said. “Brian Hoyer had been waiting on an opportunity to be able to go really provide for his family, get an opportunity. And he saw how much of an upper hand he had on me. There were instances in the quarterback room where I would ask the same question a couple of times. He would be at the head of the table and go ‘Again? We’re doing this again?’ I don’t have a bad thing to say about Brian Hoyer. But that is just fact of what happened in that room.”
Manziel went on to say that other quarterbacks in the room would confirm the story if Sharpe asked them about the validity of it.
“Go ask Connor Shaw. Go ask Connor Shaw who played at South Carolina and was with us in Cleveland. Go ask him how Brian Hoyer was in that room. Go ask Dowell Loggains how he was in that room. And it’s okay. But at that point in time, where I was being the franchise guy. I could have used a little help.”
Hoyer addressed this claim on Good Morning Football. And as expected, he didn’t exactly remember things the same way as Manziel did about his behavior in the Browns quarterback room.
“I mean look, I am on my vacation last week and I get a text from Mac Jones that goes ‘Funny I didn’t get this treatment as a rookie’. And look I’ll be honest, Johnny is right. That was an opportunity for me to go out and be the starter of my hometown team. But I was kind of apathetic towards him I would say. I didn’t go out of my way to be a jerk to him. But in the same sense, I was trying to win this job and go out and perform the best that I could.
“I feel sorry that he feels that way about it. I never had any animosity towards Johnny. If anything, it was towards the owner and the GM who were always trying to push him ahead of me when he clearly wasn’t ready and I was always going to be the starter. So it is unfortunate that it left a bad taste in his mouth. But I don’t really recall it being that way either.”
Johnny Manziel recently spoke on his rookie season with the Browns saying "The QB room was not a home for be because of Brian Hoyer."@bhoyer7 responds ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/74WZwrYQIg
— Good Morning Football (@gmfb) February 27, 2024
It seems like this is going to be a he-said-she-said situation until someone other than Manziel or Hoyer speaks up about what actually happened in the Browns quarterback room.
The truth probably lies somewhere in between how Manziel describes things and how Hoyer remembers them. Regardless, it certainly isn’t the best look for Hoyer, who just finished up his 15th season in the NFL.
[Good Morning Football on Twitter/X]
