Johnny Manziel named Browns starting QB

Manziel spent the past two games on the bench after being punished for his off-field behavior. He wanted to meet with offensive coordinator John DeFilippo and quarterbacks coach Kevin O’Connell first.

Andy Dalton threw two touchdown passes and ran for a score as the Bengals moved closer to a playoff berth and the AFC North title with a 37-3 win Sunday over the woeful Cleveland Browns, who dropped their seventh straight and have four more weeks to play in this dismal season.

With all that being said, yeah, it’s pretty messed up that so many proven veterans are struggling to stick on with teams in today’s National Football League, and, yet, young, self-centered Johnny Manziel gets reprieve after reprieve. The quarterbacks always come in the building on Tuesday. “That’s how we’ve handled it before”.

If Pettine switches back to Manziel, it would be the fourth quarterback change in five games. Pettine doesn’t trust Manziel as far as he can throw him. McCown was back starting on November 30 against the Baltimore Ravens.

Bitonio was put on injured reserve on Monday.

The Browns had reportedly expected Manziel to stay in Cleveland during the bye week and felt “betrayed” when he did not, according to Ian Rapoport.

“We haven’t had those discussions”, Pettine said when asked if ownership gave him an assurance that he would finish the season. “When you are paid to be successful, when you are paid to win in a bottom-line business and we are not, of course, there is going to be tension”. “He was on point this week in his role”. “When you have the record that we have, if there is not tension in the building, there is a problem”, Pettine said.

“It depends on how those games go”, Pettine said. “We got the win and that’s all that matters”. Green has been relatively quiet this season as he’s putting up really good numbers just nothing spectacular so, it was nice to see Green step up when the opportunity was given. That’s a good chunk of time. Sacks are up for the entire line this season, and Atkins and Peko already have more than twice as many quarterback hurries as they had a year ago. That has been encouraging. An attempt to find a diamond in the rough in the form of Davis proved futile, as the player Brett Favre oddly compared to Tom Brady looked nothing more than OK.

The demotion to No. 3 quarterback came November 24, a week after Pettine had named Manziel the starter for the rest of the season.

Browns left guard Joel Bitonio has been taken to the locker room with a left ankle injury. He suffered a sprained left ankle on December 6 when running back Duke Johnson landed on the back of his leg while being tackled.

-OL Gabe Ikard was claimed off waivers from the Buffalo Bills to take Bitonio’s roster spot. He completed 25 of 37 passes, but lost wide receivers Travis Benjamin and Marlon Moore to injuries and was continuously harassed by Bengals defensive linemen. Four receivers – Dwayne Bowe, Terrelle Pryor, Taylor Gabriel (concussion) and Andrew Hawkins (concussion) – were inactive.