Johnny Manziel is finally coming clean about his Sin City alter ego.
Two years after going AWOL ahead of Cleveland’s final game of the 2015 season, the former Browns quarterback revealed Wednesday on UNINTERRUPTED’s “The ThomaHawk Show” podcast with former teammates Joe Thomas and Andrew Hawkins that the misadventure to Las Vegas in early 2016 was supposed to be nothing more than a quickie.
“I felt like I couldn’t solidify or fix my home life without going out there. So I had this reckless, reckless plan. On a Saturday after the walk-through, I’m going to catch a 12 o’clock [commercial flight],” Manziel said, via For the Win. “So I fly out there, I get there at 2 or 3 or whatever time it is and I’m going to stay there for three hours and I’m going to catch the 10:30 flight back so I can make my mandatory treatment session the next day.”
Manziel, 25, who was in the concussion protocol, opted to “go with the flow” this time around, forgoing his typical Vegas contacts by simply requesting a room on his own at Planet Hollywood.
“Then I’m like, ‘You know what, that craps table is calling my name, that blackjack table’s calling my name.’ Because the Horseshoe in Cleveland’s corrupted me,” Manziel said. “So I sit down and the guy IDs me. I hand him my ID and he takes a look at the TV right behind me and there’s an announcement, my name’s on the bottom of the ticker, it’s a Browns something and he’s like, ‘That’s you.’ And I’m like ‘Yeah.'”
Manziel later posted an old photo of himself and his dog with an Avon, Ohio, geotag on Instagram to thwart suspicion. He then disguised his appearance with a mullet wig before dinner, giving life to the “Billy” Manziel persona.
“I put it on in two seconds, I shave all my facial hair but my mustache … it was a blondish, brown mullet,” Manziel recalled. “So we decide to go to a casual dinner before. Let’s go to Hakkasan for dinner, before we go to Hakkasan for the club. Sit down with a couple of my guys that are there.
“It’s all fun and games until one promoter’s like, ‘This is not really all that funny. This is a serious deal.’ We go out, we stay out all night, Chainsmokers. It was all right. It was what it was.”
Manziel’s attempts to shield his identity ultimately failed, as he was later spotted by a USA Today reporter. The following morning, Manziel recognized the damage had already been done.
“I get back at 2 that morning, and this is the point in time before I knew if I was flying private or doing anything like that. If I had known, I would have hopped on a plane and been back on time. But I didn’t know,” he said. “I get back to the room that night probably 3 or 4 in the morning, and it’s already 7 a.m. East Coast time. We play at 11. This stuff is already starting to come out. I have to be there at 8, which is in an hour. I’m like, ‘I’m definitely not going to make that.'”
Waking up to a “cluster” of messages, Manziel made his way back to Cleveland, where he sat down with owner Jimmy Haslam and then executive VP of football operations Sashi Brown.
“I explain where I’m at mentally, I explained what was going on in my home life and was just really open and honest with them about everything and then I think they were still going to stick through me with it,” Manziel said.
With a coaching change in Cleveland imminent, as the Browns booted Mike Pettine for Hue Jackson, Manziel knew his time with the team was up.
“The first thing I heard through my agent was, ‘If Hue Jackson gets this job, he has a contingency in his thing, if he’s taking this job the first thing he’s doing is coming and getting rid of you,'” Manziel said.
The Heisman Trophy winner was cut from the Browns in March of that year. He then hit rock bottom amid a slew of personal and legal troubles, including allegations of domestic violence. Manziel recently said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and still dreams of an NFL comeback. He will take part in the developmental Spring League in April.
“My goal is to make it back to the NFL, and I realize I have to earn that privilege,” Manziel said earlier this month. “The Spring League has provided me with a great opportunity to play ball again, and ultimately, that is all I want to do. I miss the competition.”