Johnny Manziel tossing to Josh Gordon in FCF is a sad reminder of their unfulfilled talent

14.03.2021 15:32

What could have been?

Travel back with me, if you will, to the early summer of 2014.

You’d only heard of coronavirus if you happened to really care about viruses or worked in medicine. Donald Trump was still a year out from descending on an escalator and declaring a run for president. This very website was just a year old.

It was a simpler time. A time for hope. Especially in Cleveland, where the Browns had decided to draft a brash QB out of Texas A&M to pair with an emerging star wide receiver in hopes of ending a 12-year run without making the playoffs.

Here they are, all these years later, still slinging and catching.

Johnny Manziel to Josh Gordon.

Watch on @Twitch, @watchvenn and the FCF app.https://t.co/wCfHUSeLKg pic.twitter.com/gqCIOmdjoK

— Fan Controlled Football (@fcflio) March 14, 2021

Wait. What? The Zappers?

Here in present day, Johnny Manziel and Josh Gordon are still barely hanging on to their football dreams in the Fan Controlled Football league (the Browns, meanwhile, only just broke that playoff-less streak last season). It’s a tragic story in so many ways, as both Manziel and Gordon have dealt with drug and alcohol addiction that ruined their careers.

(In the case of Gordon it appears that many of his offenses involved marijuana, and the NFL is long past due a reckoning on how strictly it controls a drug that is used legally by millions upon millions of people now.)

Manziel lasted just two seasons in the NFL, dealing with multiple injuries along the way as well as team-levied suspensions and demotions related to his continued partying.

Gordon has lingered around the NFL, since he’s an All Pro talent, without consistently playing it. He was arrested for drunk driving in July 2014 and then suspended for the entire season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy. He appealed and played in five games. Manziel appeared in three of them. Those would be the only games they played together; Gordon was suspended for the entirety of the next two seasons.

It does not appear as though the FCF reunion will have a long shelf-life, either, as the Zappers got trounced by the Wild Aces 32-6 in a playoff game that included this effort from Manziel: