Manziel to Start Again at Quarterback for Browns!

The Cleveland Browns of today equal the Cuyahoga River catching fire in 1969.

They’re an unnatural disaster, a spoiled resource, a flaming fiasco.

The Browns are 2-10, losers of their last seven games, and the only NFL team of the 32 already eliminated from the playoff chase. You can hear Dean Wormer intoning their theoretical grade point average at Faber College (where the school motto is Knowledge Is Good): Zero point zero.

So what do you do when your river is on fire? You make your sixth starting quarterback change of this dark season and put Johnny Manziel in the lineup. Again. Johnny Manziel, the life of Delta House, the benched Blutarsky of Berea, Ohio.

Manziel, whose partying ways landed him in a home for the wayward last offseason, promised the Browns when they had their bye week that he would behave, seeing as they had just named him their starter. Then he got caught on video at a party, waving a champagne bottle and the Browns benched him for lying about it (though the champagne may also have pushed their buttons).

Now, when they have little to gain, they also have nothing to lose. Why not play him? Surely Johnny Cocktail has mended his ways in, oh, the last two weeks.

“He’s been solid in the building over the last couple of weeks and we are hopeful he takes this opportunity to continue to build on the progress he’s made on the field throughout the season,” coach Mike Pettine said, mainly because he had to say something.

The Browns are at home Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers (4-8), also caught up in the funk of dysfunction. So it’s a fair fight.

Maybe Manziel can play and maybe he can’t. Maybe he can mature and lead a team, and maybe he can’t. With this guy, success and failure follow each other around like confused spies on a foggy night.

So here’s Johnny. Cue the band, Doc.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .