First of all -- Happy New Year. May the sports gods of 2014 smile upon you and your favorite teams. OK then. Enough with the mandatory annual wimpy stuff. Back to biz.
Turns out, besides hoops, Duke can play a little football too. Yeah, they got smoked by Florida State in their conference championship game a while back, but getting thumped by likely the best team in the country is nothing to be ashamed of. In the recently concluded Chic-Fil-A Bowl, the Blue Devils gave the Texas A&M Aggies all they could handle. A great game, if one likes offense. Not so good if one is defensive minded. Up and down the field both offenses marched, racking up 100 points between them. Alas, in the end, the Dukies finally succumbed, 52-48.
Though the over-under for total points scored in the game was only 75, it probably should have came as no great surprise that they managed to put up a C-note between them. After all, in the SEC, A&M was ranked 1st in offense, and dead last in defense. They score a lot -- they give up a lot. And giving up 48 points to Duke certainly wasn't quarterback Johnny Manziel's fault. He doesn't play defense.
But his offensive performance was very impressive indeed. Try 30/38 passing for 382 yards, 4 TDs, 0 interceptions or fumbles, and throw in another 72 yards rushing just for kicks. That's a helluva day for any QB, especially against a top 25 team like Duke. To boot, A&M was down by a whopping 3 touchdowns in the first half, and it looked like the Dukies were going to run them out of the building. But Johnny Football refused to quit. He was often seen along the sidelines psyching up his teammates, even the defensive unit, who looked a bit shell-shocked. Don't look at the scoreboard, he told them. This is far from over. Suck it up and play harder. We can win this game. We WILL win this game. After a very impressive first three quarters of football himself, the Duke QB finally blinked and made a couple ill-advised throws that resulted in interceptions. That was all A&M needed to seal the deal. Manziel was right. They DID come back and win.
Now the buzz has quickly turned to whether Manziel should return to A&M for another year, or jump the good ship Aggie to declare for the NFL draft.
This is a no-brainer. Of COURSE he has to go pro now. He'd be crazy not to. What number pick he might be in the overall draft will be debated until it actually happens -- but rest assured -- Johnny Football will get drafted by somebody. Given Manziel just put on a phenomenal display of his individual talent in the bowl game, his draft stock will likely never be higher. He could very well be a first round pick. That would come with guaranteed big bucks. Financially set for the rest of your life type bucks if one doesn't get totally stupid about it.
What's the best that could happen to Manziel if he returned to A&M for another year? Being the big man on campus and having a harem of Grade A Aggie cuisine at his disposal? Granted, that's a pretty sweet gig, but it doesn't pay very well, and isn't that supposed to be what people go to college for? To learn how to improve their future financial station in life? Besides, even though the BMOC thing would be gone in the NFL as a rookie, there likely wouldn't be any shortage of the above-mentioned prime cuts available. Believe it or not, a few million bucks has a way of getting the attention of very pretty girls sometimes.
With or without Manziel, it's highly doubtful A&M would compete for a national title next year. And even if they won it -- so what? That doesn't pay so hot either.
And there's always the chance he could suffer a serious injury along the way. Right now, Manziel is a special combination of a lot of different talents. He's a got a strong, accurate throwing arm. Can take a broken play and improvise it into a big gainer. Not only fast, but has open-field moves maybe not quite Barry Sanderish, but jaw-dropping at times.
How all that will translate into the pros is anybody's guess. Maybe he becomes a big star, and maybe he turns out to be a bust. Time will tell.
But if he goes back to Aggieland for another year of college glory and something bad happens -- like a knee getting blown out -- or worse -- then he can kiss it all goodbye. The millions would vanish into the ether, and whatever carnivore diet he may now possess would take a drastic change for the worse. He'd be lucky to get a hot dog to go -- let alone having filet mignon delivered to him.
Yep, how Manziel will fare amongst the big boys remains to be seen, but it's time to find out.
He's gotta go. Now.
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