EXCLUSIVE: In an NFL season defined by the Kansas City Chiefs dynasty and endless Taylor Swift crossover, one big draft moment 10 years ago looms larger than ever.
Johnny Manziel was the nation's biggest story going into the consequential 2014 NFL Draft. That night, on May 8 in New York City, Manziel showed up to Radio City Music Hall as an anomaly in the draft process. Experts fiercely debated whether one of the biggest stars in college football history was even physically and mentally capable of playing at the pro level at all.
And 10 years later, the experts who bet against Manziel were right. A short-lived, inefficient career as a backup compounded with addiction issues, bouts with depression and anxiety, and chronicles of off-the-field scandals marked Manziel's drafting as one of the darkest black-hole decisions in the league's history.
But to his credit, he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns.
"I was excited whenever it happened on draft night, but looking back now, there's times where I have a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth maybe about how my NFL career turned out," Manziel told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. "The draft is something that is out of your control, it goes the way it goes, you don't have a ton of say in where you end up. Would it have been different if I was somewhere else? Maybe. But that's not really how it went."
And while he had no say in the matter, Manziel still remembers other possibilities.
He remembers his agent Erik Burkhardt staying in close communication with the Kansas City Chiefs, and he remembers believing that the Chiefs were going to be his "floor" on draft night if he fell deep enough in the first round, which he did.
"We had been reached out by the Chiefs [that] were a team that was maybe going to be my floor and get with a guy like Andy Reid, but outside of that, the draft was just kind of a wait-and-see thing for me," Manziel said. "They had contact with my agent and we kind of had a feeling that that was going to be my floor."
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The Chiefs were coming off the first year under Reid's leadership. Reid had immediately transformed the Chiefs from a team with the worst record in the league to a team that started 9-0 and reached the playoffs with a 30-year-old Alex Smith at quarterback.
The Chiefs held the 23rd pick on draft night that year.
Manziel had fallen past the first 21 spots after draft critics voiced concerns that his skill set and character would not have warranted a selection in the first round. His size, arm strength and maturity were deemed red flags. Still, his talent was undeniable to anyone who watched him play at the college level. Manziel's ability to improvise and create big plays under pressure reflected the type of instincts that "can't be taught," often said by scouts. It was a similar unique talent to the one Chiefs fans have seen from Patrick Mahomes for the last seven years.
But before Reid and former Chiefs general manager John Dorsey even had the option to take Manziel, the Browns made a last-minute trade. The Browns hopped one pick ahead of Kansas City. They made a deal with the Philadelphia Eagles for the 22nd pick, jumping four picks up from 26 and giving up a third-rounder to avoid risking losing out on Manziel, just as the Chiefs were about to pick.
Manziel may have been Reid's first quarterback pick as the Chiefs head coach and may have given him a head start on finding a successor to Smith. At that time, Smith was viewed as a capable veteran who could help the Chiefs compete, but not a long-term franchise star.
Manziel may have stepped into a similar situation that Patrick Mahomes had stepped into in 2017, but three years earlier.
But instead, Manziel went to Cleveland, joining a sad club of other potential stars who saw their careers die on the banks of Lake Eerie. Brady Quinn, Tim Couch and more recently, Deshawn Watson, all lay alongside Manziel in the Browns' infamous quarterback career graveyard.
"It's hard for me to look back on my NFL career now and say it could have been much worse," Manziel said. "I think being there and being in a situation where I was a backup and learning from a guy like Alex Smith and Andy Reid, it could have only been positive."
Manziel added that he had never been to Kansas City before in his life. In contrast, he said that getting drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, who played close to where he grew up in Texas, would have put him in the worst situation possible because of how familiar he was with the area and the people in that could have pulled him into more poor decisions. But he had no such knowledge of the activities in Missouri.
If the Chiefs had taken Manziel, his default contract would have run at least through the 2017 season – Mahomes' rookie year – with an option for a fifth year on the 2018 season. Meanwhile, a few months after the 2014 draft, Smith went on to sign a four-year $68 million contract extension with the Chiefs to stay in Kansas City through 2018.
Had the Chiefs drafted Manziel, Smith, Mahomes and their seamless handover of the starting job that propelled the Chiefs to a dynasty may have never happened.
But even if the Browns didn't make the trade to take Manziel ahead the Chiefs, there was another possibility that may have landed him in Kansas City the following year, if Reid really wanted him.
Manziel said he has also thought about a life in which he didn't declare for the draft in 2014. After two Heisman-worthy college seasons in 2012 and 2013, Texas A&M fans prayed Manziel would stay in college for at least one more year.
Now he thinks that staying one more year may have been a better course of action.
"Maybe I could have gotten a little more prepared football wise for what was coming in the NFL," Manziel said. "I still sit back at times thinking about having two years of eligibility and maybe I could have stayed, maybe I did leave a little bit early."
Manziel added that he would have wanted to help the Aggies compete for a national championship if he stayed another year.
The Chiefs would have had an even better chance to draft Manziel the following spring if he didn't declare until 2015. After missing the playoffs in 2014, the Chiefs ended up with the 18th pick in the draft that year.
Tight end Travis Kelce was already in Kansas City at that point. He had already helped spearhead the turnaround as one of Reid's first Chiefs draft picks in 2013. But even then, even if Manziel had the privilege of passing to Kelce, on a team with a strong roster, a Hall of Fame head coach and a city and team culture that's done nothing but yield winning and prosperous lives for players over the last decade, Manziel can't say for sure he wouldn't have spiraled into the same habits that tanked his NFL career in Cleveland, even with another year in college.
"I don't know if there's anything in that point in time or if another year would have helped me prepare for where I was in my life at that point," Manziel said.
"I still think there would have been a huge learning curve, a huge gap for me. At the end of the day, I was in a great position to go and have a longer NFL career than I did, and it just came down to me and myself. I don't put a lot of blame on anybody else but myself for things not working out."
Kelce and Chiefs fans will never have to know how things would have gone if the team took Manziel or 2014 or 2015. Kelce bloomed into a perennial Pro Bowler playing with Smith, then Mahomes elevated him to a multiple-time Super Bowl champion and one of the biggest superstars in the sport. And of course, Taylor Swift came along not too far after that.
Would Kelce have become the star pass catcher worthy of wooing Swift had the Chiefs made Manziel their quarterback? The world will never know.
But that didn't happen and now all NFL fans are bracing for the possibility of seeing the Chiefs make a run to a third straight Super Bowl, while shots of Swift and Mahomes' wife, Brittany, interrupt countless minutes of NFL playoff broadcasts.
"The best team is going to win it every year, and if that happens to be the Chiefs, then maybe [the other fans] will just have to keep hating on them," Manziel said.
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