Johnny Manziel: A game to forget against the Tiger-Cats

By: Adamo Marinelli

August 8th, 2018

    After nearly three years since his last game in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns in December 2015, Manziel was ready to start fresh in his first CFL regular season game with the Alouettes on August 3rd after being traded by Hamilton once they decided Jeremiah Masoli would be their starting quarterback. Manziel played one preseason game with the Tiger-Cats where he threw a touchdown and had 88 passing yards and now with the Alouettes, was set to take on the team that welcomed him to the CFL.

    Before Manziel even had the chance to get on the field, a muffed kickoff after a Hamilton touchdown on the opening drive of the game by a Montreal Alouette brought the Hamilton offence back onto the field with superb field position. At this point, Montreal fans already began to worry.

    Then after Montreal got the ball back, Manziel’s first regular-season pass in the CFL was an interception to Larry Dean of the Tiger-Cats at the Montreal 24-yard line and returned to the 11. This followed by another Hamilton touchdown to put them up 14-0. Hamilton would go up 21-0 off a blocked punt from the Montreal 25-yard line returned for a touchdown.

    Then with just over six minutes left to play in the first quarter, the Alouettes had a 1st & 10 from their own 50-yard line. Manziel escaped pressure and avoided 3 tackles before throwing a pass to his wide receiver which should’ve been caught but it wasn’t. That was Manziel’s second interception in less than a quarter of football. That led to a 21-yard touchdown pass from Masoli to Saunders and the Tiger-Cats took a 28-0 first quarter lead.

    What a terrible start for Manziel and the Alouettes. But unbeknownst to them, things would only get worse.

    With only 1:43 gone in the second quarter, the Tiger-Cats up 28-3, Montreal’s Domenic Ellis intercepted Jeremiah Masoli at the Montreal 35-yard line, ran it back to about the Montreal 47 yard line and received an extra 15-yards on a ‘horse collar’ penalty against Hamilton. Montreal had a 1st & 10 at the Hamilton 48. Things actually looked good. But it was too good to be true. Two plays later, on 3rd & 3 from Hamilton’s 41 with 11:30 remaining in the second quarter, Manziel on a bootleg play action pass overthrew his receiver on a deep ball down the field and was intercepted for the third time in the game. That interception would lead to Hamilton RB Alex Green’s second touchdown of the night just under five minutes later. Hamilton led 35-3 with 6:43 left in the first half.

    Later in the second quarter, the Alouettes had a 1st & 10 at the Hamilton 51-yard line. Finally, the Montreal crowd got a taste of the real Johnny Football. Manziel rolled left off the snap and fired a 31-yard pass to Eugene Lewis. Montreal had a fresh set of downs on the enemy 20-yard line with 2:42 remaining in the first half. After a gain of six yards, on 2nd & 6 from Hamilton’s 14-yard line, Manziel, under pressure from two Hamilton defenders, underthrew his intended receiver and threw his fourth interception of the first half of his first CFL regular-season game. This game resembles his first start as a QB in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns, in week 15 of the 2014 season, wherein a 30-0 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Manziel completed 10-18 passes for only 80 yards and two interceptions for a 27.3 passer rating -- one of the lowest all-time in the Super Bowl era -- while being sacked three times. This fourth interception led to a Lirim Hajrullahu field goal to increase Hamilton’s lead to 38-3 with under a minute left in the half.

    About 2:05 into the fourth quarter, Manziel was pulled for backup QB Vernon Adams who had a rushing touchdown and a successful two-point conversion pass to give the Alouettes fans something to cheer about, even though there was very little to cheer about that night.

    In a 50-11 loss, Manziel had completed 11-20 passes for a mere 104 yards and four interceptions. On the other hand, Masoli completed 17-26 of his passes for 300 yards, two passing touchdowns, one rushing touchdown and an interception. Clearly, Masoli was the much better quarterback.

    It was a very sombre performance by Manziel in his first CFL regular-season start, however, despite his struggles in his first CFL start, he plans to only stay positive and look ahead to next week’s game in Ottawa on August 11th. Hamilton will visit Winnipeg to play the Blue Bombers on August 10th, to try and catch the Redblacks for first place in the East division.