Ahead of return to football, Johnny Manziel asked about possible NFL comeback
By SDS Staff
Published:
Johnny Manziel is returning to the gridiron with the Fan Controlled Football league, but the former Texas A&M standout says he isn’t trying to make an NFL comeback.
“Even if I got an opportunity to go back to the NFL, I don’t think I would take it,” Manizel told Josh Peter of USA TODAY. “I don’t think it’s my path. I don’t think it’s what’s meant to be. I think there are a million other avenues and things I can do in life.”
Manziel continued, elaborating on why he doesn’t expect to get back in the NFL.
“I’ve been good as a football player in the past. I want to be good at something else in life, and I’ve tried to be patient and not force things like I have in the past and let life just come to me. And I’m a believer in something will pop up in my life that I know I’m going to love the way that I loved football at one point in time.
“For a time I didn’t like waking up and going and playing football anymore. I didn’t like the grind and going to work doing the whole thing. I fell out of love with it. So I think there’s going to be something that comes into my life moving forward. I don’t know exactly what it looks like or what it is, but in due time it’ll pop up and I’ll have that lightbulb moment again.”
Manziel further explained why he decided to take accept of the Fan Controlled Football opportunity.
“A big reason I’m here is I’m a little bored,” Manziel said. “I’ve been playing golf five days a week, hanging with my boys and playing cards and running around Scottsdale having a blast with a great group of friends that I’ve acquired out there. But I don’t have much of a schedule unless I create one, and I haven’t really created one.
“This isn’t me trying to be a comeback, redemption-type of tour for me to go back and play football anymore moving forward. After I play here, I probably won’t pick up a football again for another year. Two. Or maybe even longer than that. This is just an opportunity that got presented to me to get around a bunch of good guys who I feel like we’ll make great business connections with and I’ll have a lot of fun while I’m doing it.”
Fan Controlled Football, which will feature hour-long 7-on-7 games on a 50-yard field, starts this Saturday. Manziel last played in the Alliance of American Football spring league in 2019.
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
