Johnny and the 300
Woo! Comic #300! Thank you guys so much for reading and keeping me motivated for this silly idea.
I didn’t want to do 2 comics about Johnny Football in a row, but I guess it was inevitable after that weekend. He didn’t set the league on fire all Johnny Football style, nor did he have a middling nobody rookie performance. He was really raw and played terribly. Of course, this was met with the expected response.
LOOK HOW BAD HE IS! JOHNNY FOOTBALL IS A BUST. HE’S A JOKE. It was the kind of day the haters were living for. It was the kind of day the old stodgy grumps hate. This young hotshot smug douche who “didn’t play football the right way” and all that crap. I’ve been watching football for years and I’m well versed in just how over-reactionary people can be, but sometimes it still manages to surprise. This was one of those times. So many people calling JFF out. So many people saying he was done, that he would never work, that Johnny Football is over. Those people are stupid. You simply cannot make those kinds of judgments after one game, but some idiots were legitimately calling him a bust after 1 quarter!
JFF is a rookie, who only played 2 years, in a style of ball not typical in the NFL. This is week 15, to me I think the Browns were giving up the season. Hoyer wasn’t playing well at all and they were officially in a very difficult spot to make the playoffs. Lets see what the Rookie can do! Throw him to the wolves, see what happens? JFF played bad. I have no way to defend his play, he was awful. But to dismiss him after one bad game, it’s just ridiculous. No player deserves to be judged for one game. Not even 3 games. He could finish this season doing just as bad (He plays the Panthers and Ravens, so not super powers but still stout defenses) and I still don’t feel like he will deserve to be judged as a bust. He was always going to need time to adjust. One game and lots of time on the bench is not enough time. It just isn’t. Anyone who says JFF is a bust after one game is an idiot. It’s not fair to him, and it’s not fair to football. Yes I wish he was less hyped. Yes I enjoy seeing him get hit and the defender mocking his money sign. But I also want to see him succeed. I really do.
I’ve alluded to this before, but the NFL needs personalities like JFF, for good and for evil. Football is entertainment, you can pretend it’s not but it absolutely at it’s core is just pure entertainment. If Johnny is good, then he’s awesome to watch because he’s fun to see. If Johnny is good, his brand will grow and his media hype will increase and we will all love to hate him. Part of me really liked Tebow. Tebow was terrible. I had some guy on twitter start arguing that Tebow never got a fair chance and was unfairly judged just like JFF is being. I disagree with that, Tebow had more opportunity and didn’t prove his worth. He was a little screwed by the Jets for sure, but he was dumped by Denver for a reason. The Pats dumped him for a reason, and I think he never got play time on the Jets for a reason. Tebow stunk at an NFL level. But part of me liked having him there, because man he was fun on gameday. The rest of the week? I wanted Tebow to go away. But on gameday? He was so fun. I loved watching his energy, his enthusiasm, and his failures. Watching Tebow try to do a Tebow thing and get lit up was so satisfying. That playoff game against the Steelers was incredible and I was pulling for him, and yet I I still rooted for the Pats the next week to destroy him and it was glorious. I loved hating Tebow. Now that he’s gone? I don’t care about him at all and wish that those in the “Cult of Tebow” are morons who need to move on. Tebow is gone. Get over him.
What’s funny is those are the same people who now call JFF a bust and want him gone, and will proclaim always being right if he does indeed flame out. JFF just speaks to a different type of personality. Now those who loved and pine for Teebs and feel he was never given a chance call Johnny a flame out after 1 game. No ability to see their own hypocrisy. I kind of want JFF to succeed just to piss off those Tebow numbnuts. JFF is going to be a hype machine until he’s out of the league. Just embrace it and hope we see some clownball/amazeball before it happens.
Go Johnny Football. I don’t have the most faith you’ll be a star, but I’d love it if you proved me wrong.
I’d love to see JFF succeed, but I’ve never bought it happening. The learning curve at QB is already absurdly steep, but I recall reading that A&M didn’t even have an organized playbook. It was literally backyard football that worked because JFF and Mike Evans were absurdly talented. He doesn’t just have to learn the NFL, he has to learn organized offense period. That’s a tall task, and I’m not sure I trust a guy who took constant party trips to Vegas in his first offseason even while he was struggling in minicamps and OTAs to put the work in during the offseason.
We had a brief discussion on Twitter about this but now I’m glad I have more than 140 characters so I can articulate my thoughts properly.
Ok, I’ll give you that it’s not his fault he was in a crappy system in college that would fail to prepare anyone for pro level. HOWEVER time isn’t the answer here. Did you see him play? His abysmal mechanics? Constantly throwing across the body to his first read, even if his first read was nowhere near often? His footwork was sickening, and he had no clue what he was doing in the pocket. He proved as much in the offseason too, when he failed to make plays against defenders who would be flipping burgers or stacking shelves the next week.
The Clarificator is right in that he’s his own worst enemy here. He spent so long playing the “I know better than the rest of the league, I don’t have to listen to you, I don’t have to bother learning the playbook or the system” card that yeah, we’re glad to see him fail horribly. But he’s also screwed himself over because in all that time he could have been preparing and trying to even slightly resemble a pro-level QB, he wasn’t.
I get wanting to give him time, because there are players who start poor and get better – Peyton Manning stunk up the league in his rookie year for crying out loud,throwing a league high 28 picks on the way to a 3-13 record – but unlike those QBs, Manziel didn’t show a single glimpse of an ability to play the position at a high level. There are some things time just can’t fix and there’s no way in the relatively short career span of a non-elite QB that Johnny Manziel will be able to address all his problems and be a viable starter. Look at the QBs in the league and you STILL see their problems: Stafford still throws the ball like a shortstop turning a double play. Caep still struggles to get past his first reads. Even Brady isn’t without fault; he ducks more ghosts than…. I don’t have a good analogy here, but he ducks a lot of ghosts. Some things just can’t be fixed and when a QBs mechanics and football IQ are that low, I don’t see how anything can improve. You bring up Tebow but at least Tim was able to run on NFL defenses (though how much of that is taking advantage of the fact that hardly anyone was doing it is up for debate) and in all his starts, even his first, never put up a rating as bad as 1.0. ONE POINT ZERO.
I get not wanting to come down on one side of the “hype/hate machine”. I get wanting to be reasonable and give the kid a chance. But in pre-season, in his limited snaps throughout the regular season and in his first ever start, he didn’t show a single glimpse of having anything to work with.
And I’ll repeat this
It’s. one. goddamn. game. His team did him no favors yesterday, even if he stunk.
I saw the same things you did and effectively feel the same way. I don’t have a lot of faith in his skillset translating to the NFL. To me he’s the definition of a college star, the player who is all talent and can coast by in College ball but will hit the wall in the NFL.
But I refuse to call him a bust and a future failure after one fucking game. That is ridiculous. He deserves his chances. Maybe he just needed a good smack of humility in him and the game provided it. One Game Means Nothing. We can declare him a bust mid next season or so after he has more time and still doesn’t improve.
Credit where credit is due though, he finally showed some maturity and humility after the game, admitting he stunk and didn’t make the “rookie excuse”.
What I find most amusing is how every ones hating on jff, but making excuses for aaron Rodgers, oh Buffalo’s cold you know, yeeeeaah so Green bay is the bloody tropics is it?
Rodgers has a track record and JFF does not
I’ve got to admit, Cleveland was the worst place for him to go to. The place has averaged 1.4 quarterbacks per year since 1999. For a guy who played two years of college ball and played it in such a backyard style, he would have needed time to develop. Like Aaron Rodgers levels of development time.
Congratulations on comic #300! It’s been a pleasure so far, and I’m looking forward to many more. LeBron and JFF are, to me, in the same category of comic as Cutler and Ringless Rivers. Great stuff.
Chris: Pac-Man. Ducks more ghosts than Pac-Man. That one’s free.
Saint Stryfe, you live up to your name, thank you.
The cartoon was perfect (especially the last frame). However, the discussion was awesome as well.
I found that since the primary sport I follow anymore is boxing, the realization that sports is purely entertainment and thus, like wrestling, all its players are merely character archetypes is much easier.
That last panel is made of awesome.
My favorite part is how “Awful Lot” can be taken in two contexts and both of them are 100% accurate
Needs more fire.
Other than that, the funniest TDP for a while.
You cannot expect civility, or thought out ideas, from a fan base that called for the head of a QB that brought us to 7-6 with an 11-6 lifetime record, (also known as ‘The second best record the browns have had in 15 years’) and broke franchise record after franchise record (The good ones, not the ’10th consecutive loss is a franchise record’ ones). I spend much time on /r/Browns and its vitriol has done this to me: Hope to all that is holy that they fire both of them, and run Connor Shaw, or trade Johnny and our two first round picks for Mariotta, and call it a day.
I’m a former A&M student so my bias is obvious, but the little of the game I can stand to watch, his offensive line was atrocious. He obviously wasn’t great but he needs at least some help up front. Couldn’t get past his first read? He didn’t have time for that most of the game. Needs more pocket presence? WHAT POCKET? Hopefully they’ll draft some offensive linemen early in the draft to help him and hopefully he blows up the league next year.
If there’s one thing I know, it’s that this world is much more fun when Johnny Football is lighting it on fire.
The defense wasn’t good either. Before Johnny had 6 snaps the Bengals had put them in a hole. He also didn’t get much help from his receivers, that one play on the first drive where he would have had a first down if the WR hadn’t dropped a pass right in the numbers.
I think Johnny’s ceiling is a Russell Wilson type but he has a long way to go. I don’t think he’s going to have the time in today’s impatient NFL to get that far. You also need a really good OC to work with a project QB’s strengths like Mike McCoy did with Tebow’s one good season. Right now Greg Roman is ruining Kaep by making him do things he just isn’t good at yet instead of catering to what he does do well and slowly working his development up.
I think a lot of the “JFF is a bust!” stuff comes from his defenders defending him oh so hard. The hype levels got too high, and now the people who dislike him have a reason to finally push back. They get their “I told you so!” moment to waggle their fingers at the people who thought Johnny was the guaranteed new GOAT. Honestly, both sides are at least a bit mental. The Browns fought a good fight, but there were too many problems to make it to the playoffs. Thankfully.
Congrats on #300!
TDF has become one of my favorite comics, I hope you are planning on doing it for a long time.
College FB fan living in Cleveland. Confession. I only care marginally for the NFL, but I love your comic (and #300 is one of my top five). Keep cranking them out. I’ll try and through you a bone if you come up with some merch.