Johnny Manziel hit the casino over the weekend, with the college quarterback posting a picture of himself clutching fans of casino cash on Instagram.
The Texas A&M Aggies star and Heisman Trophy winner rocked up at a WinStar casino in Oklahoma, but his winning experience turned sour when he drew criticism for posting a photo of himself and pals holding what looks like thousands of dollars.
The image quickly sparked a bout of tut-tutting from other Instagram users. Within hours, the Johnny Manziel casino image had disappeared from the 20-year-old’s account, and a defiant follow-up tweet had been posted by Manziel:
“Nothing illegal about being 18+ in a casino and winning money…KEEP HATING!”
Manziel has already received criticism for snagging courtside seats at the Mavericks-Heat NBA game, and many football pundits believe his latest posting has backfired. Chris Chase at USA Today writes:
“Just because it’s legal to be 20 and rolling in cash at a casino doesn’t mean it’s a good move for the Heisman Trophy winner to celebrate it. There’s far too much bad that can happen – maybe a 21-year-old friend has a beer in the picture that looks like it belongs to Manziel, maybe someone is photobombing by flipping the bird, maybe someone at the casino sees Manziel’s tweet and starts trouble. The negatives outweigh the non-existant positives.”
Graham Watson at Yahoo! Sports expressed similar sentiments:
“If Manziel wasn’t the Heisman Trophy winner no one would care. But Manziel needs to realize that he is the face of college football right now and he can’t post tweets like a 17-year-old recruit or an overpaid professional athlete.”
What do you think, readers? Is the backlash over the Johnny Manziel casino shot simply a case of jealous onlookers, or should Johnny Football keep his head a little lower?
Nothing illegal about being 18+ in a casino and winning money…KEEP HATING!
— Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) January 6, 2013