Ah, Johnny Manziel.
Already my favorite player in SEC history and he's only played a year.
Saturday Manziel returned to his hometown of Kerrville, Texas to have a welcome home celebration on the football field. As part of that celebration Manziel brought his Heisman Trophy back home with him. Then according to an anonymous email tipster, Manziel went out to celebrate.
UPDATE Manziel says this is a photoshop on Twitter.
"ABSOLUTELY PHOTOSHOPPED. People are always out to get me...sorry for kissing my trophy."
That night of celebration happened to also be on 4/20.
And, well, you know, how hometown celebrations can go with the Heisman Trophy on 4/20.
Eventually the Heisman Trophy can end up holding a blunt in his stiff arm while your buddy gives the hook 'em horns sign in the background of the photo. (This could also just be a cigar or cigarrillo of some sort without pot inside, but the fact that the Heisman Trophy is holding it on 4/20 makes it pretty clear the intent is to make it appear to be a blunt.)
You can't really tell for certain that Manziel is holding and kissing the Heisman, but the guy holding the photo in this picture is wearing the same shirt that Manziel wore at the high school ceremony earlier in the day. You can see those photos on the front page of texags.com.
I happen to think this picture is hysterical. Of course, I happen to think that everything Johnny Manziel does is hysterical because he's behaving pretty much the exact same way that I would if I'd won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman quarterback while playing at an SEC school.
There's always the possibility that the blunt has been photoshopped into the picture, which is why I emailed Texas A&M to give them a chance to respond. But based on the details included in the emailed picture, I'm pretty confident it hasn't been photoshopped. Of course in this day and Internet age, you never know for certain if any photo is 100% valid. Remember the Internet fuss over whether or not Manziel's Longhorn tattoo from spring break was real? (Turned out it was just a henna tattoo and done as a joke.) As a head's up, I gave Texas A&M an alert them that this picture would shortly be everywhere on the Internet. Because if Outkick is getting anonymously emailed the picture then it will also be emailed to other sites in short order. The picture will also show up on message boards and take on a life of its own.
So far Texas A&M has not officially responded to the picture, but we'll update this story when they do.
As noted in the opening edit, Manziel says on Twitter it's a photoshop. "ABSOLUTELY PHOTOSHOPPED. People are always out to get me...sorry for kissing my trophy."
Manziel can also just claim it's a friend's and shrug it off. Or he can claim the photo isn't real, since no one is going to go CSI on this photo.
Oh, Johnny, we love you so at Outkick.
This just became the most iconic photo of the Heisman Trophy of all time. (Although you know somewhere Matt Leinart has a photo of the Heisman in a hot tub surrounded by a harem of topless women).
Absolutely hysterical.
Right down to the hook 'em horns in the background.
Manziel owns the Internet.
