Are Manziel's Teammates Growing Tired of the Limelight Already?

Published on 5-Jun-2014 by Stacey Mickles

Football - NFL    NFL Daily Review

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Are Manziel's Teammates Growing Tired of the Limelight Already?

From the uh-oh department, it seems as if some of the Cleveland Browns are already getting sick and tired of the Johnny Football Show in Cleveland.

Not Mr Football hizownself. The trappings that go with it.

Former Auburn running back Ben Tate expressed his displeasure at the media circus surrounding their newly drafted quarterback:

It’s just as a player, I know that I would get tired if people were constantly monitoring if I picked my nose, if I spit to the left or right. I mean, it’s annoying. He’s a human being.

And then he got upset at the media who thought he was criticizing Manziel instead of them:

Tate tweet

If you didn't see this coming, you haven't been paying attention. You knew this was coming. The universal reason many think Tim Tebow is out of the league is partly because teams didn't want the circus coming to town.

Cleveland's where the tent is pitched now, and some of the Browns don't like it. Even the coaches are trying to cope with all the newfound attention at something as mundane as OTAs.

Yeah, right.

Tate's degree at Auburn may not have been in Communications or Media Relations, but he's letting the media know what he sees, getting to the heart of where the industry has gone these days:

Y'all just want to report the fastest story nowadays. Ya'll don't necessarily check sources or see if they're right anymore.

The irony about criticizing the trash media is that the NFL has for so many years done what major corporations do, which is to be in übercontrol of its coverage. For example, in the glory days of the Raiders -- before the TMZs of the world were around -- reporters knew about bail money being passed out to players at Super Bowl XV or Snake Stabler putting cherry bombs in remote toy trucks and sending them in to John Madden's office, where they'd explode.

Not quite what the button-down, vanilla NFL wants to see written about its players.

But back then, that stuff only made it into books, published well after the deeds. It makes one realize that the antics of one J Manziel are pale by comparison. The only difference is that his escapades are set in the wired world.

And don't feel sorry for the Browns. They knew who they were getting. They're watching their cash registers keep ringing as a result, and the CBA ensures they'll be reaping some of those benefits.

Ben Tate and his teammates are smart enough to know that, too.