The Cleveland Browns could only hope that Johnny Manziel ‘s second season in the NFL would show much more than his first. Well, they’re going to have to wait until the regular season because he’s now done for the rest of the preseason. Manziel has an elbow injury that the Browns aren’t playing around with, but how long will he be out?
A sore right elbow is going to keep Johnny Manziel from playing in Saturday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As ESPN reports, Browns head coach Mike Pettine also says that Manziel will miss the preseason finale on Thursday night against the Chicago Bears.
“You can’t get those reps back. He’ll lose out on all that real-game experience, but we’re very pleased with where he is currently. If we truly felt like, ‘Hey, he needs to get out there and get these reps,’ then this is something we could have worked through.
“But we just felt like heading into the season, it’s a long year, let’s go ahead and shut him down and rest and make sure it’s 100 percent once we head to New York [for the opener].”
That is now the big question: Will Johnny Manziel be ready for the season opener against the New York Jets?
Josh McCown is still penciled in as the regular season starter, but it’s well known that the Browns are going to have some play sets for Manziel. With that, it seems Pettine doesn’t want his young quarterback growing cold or stiff, but the team wants to be cautious with his arm.
As Fox Sports reported, the plan was to give Manziel some “meaningful reps” in the final two preseason games. Cleveland does not want to risk further injury to him, and they believe it’s better for him to rest.
Coach Pettine says he really isn’t sure when the 22-year-old quarterback will resume full participation in practice, but he is not throwing any passes at all for now.
The sore elbow is not necessarily a new injury, as it actually first kept Johnny Manziel out of practice on Aug. 11. Since then, he’s been extremely limited and didn’t throw a single pass in this week’s practice leading up to the Buccaneers’ game.
The Cleveland Browns signed free agent Pat Devlin this week since Connor Shaw is also out after ligament surgery on his right thumb.
Johnny Manziel won’t be involved in any other preseason games due to his right elbow injury, but how long will he be out? The Cleveland Browns can hope he’ll be ready by the season opener, but they aren’t going to rush him back.
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