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Haslam: 'Way too early to give up on Johnny'

Published Feb. 12, 2015 10:23 a.m. ET

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BEREA, Ohio -- Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam met with the local media Wednesday and insisted he didn't meddle in the draft, particularly in the drafting of quarterback Johnny Manziel.

"Let me give you the full story and I've never said anything about this because I don't like getting into 'he said, she said' type conversations. But it started when (ESPN's) Sal Paolantonio was here for the draft, and I'd never met Sal and he came back to my office and he said 'Isn't Cleveland a wonderful football town?' and I said 'It really is,' and I said 'Let me give you an example,' " Haslam said. "And I told him about going to give the speech at the, I can't remember I think it was a Boy Scout dinner, Boys Club, Girls Club, whatever it was and the homeless person saying draft Manziel. The point was not that that's why we picked Manziel. My point was everybody's interested in football and he took that and I'm going to assume there was nothing malicious but ran with it. It made a great story, OK?

"The organization agreed we were going to pick a quarterback. Johnny was the top-rated quarterback on the board at this time and I know everybody's down on Johnny right now, but go back and look at all the mock picks, go back and look at all the ratings. Johnny's obviously controversial, but every single person had him just about in the top, in the first round," he said. "You asked about the draft. One of our guys handed me something the other day. I think Cleveland.com rated us an A, you know?

"USA Today had us No. 1 out of the 32," he continued. "We didn't get all excited about that... it's like recruiting classes, you've got to let it pan out and see. We'll know in a couple years. But that's the full Manziel story. We were going to pick a quarterback. When our pick came, he was our top-ranked quarterback on the board. We picked Manziel. If his name had been Joe Smith we would've picked him, okay? Because he's Johnny Manziel and Johnny Football, it makes a great story, ownership, president football, etc. that's just not the case. I'm not going to get into the (former Browns QB coach) Dowell (Loggains) stuff, just to say that his story is inaccurate and I'll just leave it at that."

Haslam denied the business side of the Browns had anything to do with drafting Manziel.

"That's crazy," he said. "(President) Alec (Scheiner) can tell you this better than I can because he's so much better at the business side of football than I am, but everybody thinks (Manziel's) going to sell a lot more jerseys," he said. "You put what you make on merchandise into a pool and divide it by 32. In the scheme of things in NFL dollars it's this big (holding his fingers and inch apart). It's not this big (hands a foot apart)."

Haslam admitted the learning curve has been bigger than he might have originally thought of being an NFL owner.

"I think I have said on a lot of occasions, and I hope it's at some point in time I don't continue telling you all this, OK. It's a learning curve and it has been for me and I freely admit that," he said. "I can't comment on how it has been for other owners who came in, and yes, we had an association with the Steelers, but we weren't there in the building every day so it's been a steep learning curve and hopefully we will do a better job leading the organization than we have in the past. But here's how I see my role is set the goals for the organization, put the right people in the right place, provide them with the resources they need to do their job and then hold them accountable. That's what I spend my time doing, OK?"

Haslam was asked about Manziel's character and background.

"Let me say this: I don't know how much of Johnny's personal life was known by everybody then and I don't know how much it's known now," Haslam said. "I'll go back to what I'm saying: Prolific college career and by almost everybody rated as a first-round pick. You might have had him as the first, second or third quarterback, but a few people didn't like him but a lot of people really liked him.

"I think it's way too early to give up on Johnny," he said. "I do. I think it's way too early to give up on him. We certainly haven't given up on him. Now, if it's two years from now and Johnny hasn't played any and doesn't have his personal life together, that's different, but it's way too early. I think everybody is way too harsh -- he's an easy guy to pile on -- for everybody to give up on him."

Haslam did say that he expects more from Manziel -- both on and off the field.

"I think we said in our little session after we played the Ravens, that listen, we're disappointed," Haslam said. "And I'm sure this is going to come up so I'll go ahead and address it in terms of his personal situation.

"I think all of us had family members, friends, kids' friends, people we've worked with go through a situation like this. It's tough," he said. "I applaud him for raising his hand and saying 'I need help.' And we're going to do everything we can to support him. Our primary interest is making sure that he gets well, if you will, fixes himself. However long that takes, we're going to stand beside him. And we hope Johnny can get that straightened out because we think he's a really good athlete and can help our team, but the first thing he's got to do is get himself fixed."

Haslam iterated that the team is not counting on Manziel.

"We're going to continue to look to find the right person (to be quarterback)," he said. "It could be one of the three people that were on our roster last year, it could be somebody else. We're going to continue to look for the quarterback position. We understand how important it is.

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