Though the NFL may have moved on from him, Johnny Manziel has not yet given up on playing professional football. Taken in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, Manziel was out of the league less than two years later, released by the Cleveland Browns and yet to be picked up by another club.
Now 24, Manziel said during his appearance at the International Football Betting Conference in Costa Rica that his agent has continued to field and make calls to NFL teams. (Though, it must be pointed out, NFL training camps are well underway... and Johnny Football was at the International Football Betting Conference in Costa Rica.)
In the event the magic he carried with him at Texas A&M does not return, Manziel says he wants to stay connected to sports and to football, if not as a player then as a coach -- and particularly a college football coach.
"I'd do something involved with sports. I can't get away from it," he said. "I've had to ask myself that a little bit as of late over the past year, but at the same time I'd want to be involved in sports in some way, whether it's coaching, whether it's doing something like that. So I think that'd be my route."
Manziel has lived a cautionary tale he could share with players, about how success that comes early and easily can leave you just as easily and just as quickly. Manziel says he's engaged now and no longer living like he did in Cleveland.
It would be interesting, though, to see how Manziel the Coach would fare given that so much of Manziel the Player's success came when he freelanced away from the playbook. Much like Ted Williams couldn't teach other baseball players to hit like Ted Williams, Manziel succeeded in a way that the vast majority of players simply can't replicate.
And for the record, Manziel would not want to coach a player like he was.
"I look back at it now and see how hard-headed I was," he said. "There are a lot of regrets that I have, with my second year in college not taking it as seriously as I did my first year."