Josh McCown

Browns owner Haslam: 'We haven't given up on Johnny Manziel'

Published Aug. 1, 2015 4:59 p.m. ET

foxsports

After being taken in the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, Johnny Manziel has found himself under a lot of pressure to succeed. Needless to say, things didn’t turn out as well as he wanted to in his first year with the Cleveland Browns.

Going into Year 2, there's a mindset that his time with the team could be coming to an end before it even has a chance to start.

Saturday, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam decided to set the record straight on the subject and support Manziel:

“Despite what everybody reads and says, we’ve not at all given up on Johnny,” Haslam said, via Cleveland.com. “We think he has the potential to be a good football player. Now, having the potential and doing it are two different things, but I think we’ve said numerous times that you’re not going to win consistently in this league without a good quarterback and we’re trying to make that happen.”

“I think it’s important -- everybody forgets he’s barely 22 years old,” said Haslam. “He’s still young, so I think over the next couple of years we’ve got to see if Johnny can be a legitimate quarterback or not. I don’t want to put too much pressure on him or our coaches to say it has to happen this year.”

Manziel is battling Josh McCown for the starting job, a position head coach Mike Pettine has not made a decision on quite yet.

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