Browns prepared to start Johnny Manziel over final four games, Mike Pettine’s

While Pettine did not go into specifics, it seems likely that the source of the division centers around (or at the very least includes) quarterback Johnny Manziel.

Mike Pettine, Cleveland Browns’ coach, is yet to decide whether he would field Manziel as a starter in the next outing. He wanted to meet with offensive coordinator John DeFilippo and quarterbacks coach Kevin O’Connell first. “I can’t sit here and say absolutely we’re all on board 100 percent”, Pettine said Monday after the Browns’ 37-3 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

He said he will stop showing Browns games, ban employees from wearing Browns gear and no longer offer “game day” specials, acknowledging it will cost him money. The quarterbacks always come in the building on Tuesday. There were chances to get rid of the ball, and as always, a couple times, those pressures are on me for not getting the ball out. “That’s how we’ve handled it before”.

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen and NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport reported that Manziel is back as the Browns’ starter beginning with this Sunday’s game against the San Francisco 49ers.

Austin Davis started in place of the injured Josh McCown, who is out for the season, against the Cincinnati Bengals last week. Manziel was benched for two games after a video of him partying with alcohol during the team’s bye week surfaced and he proceeded to lie about the age of the video. The Browns, as a whole, are just an absolute disaster, and adding Manziel back to the starting lineup is simply a means to see what he has and maybe boost waning ticket sales. The league said it did not find any evidence that Manziel violated its personal conduct policy. “As I’ve talked about before, when he’s in the building, that hasn’t been an issue”.

The Browns ended the week the same way they started it – feeling humiliated, dejected and embarrassed.

The blowout raised more questions about the franchise’s direction, and Pettine, who is just 2-15 in his last 17 games, said there’s not complete agreement on what should be done to fix things.

“It depends on how those games go”, Pettine said. It did not even take that many throws from quarterback Andy Dalton to get the job done.

After today’s win, Dalton also now has the most road wins (24) by a quarterback in his first five seasons in the Super Bowl era. That’s a good chunk of time. “I think we all expected it the Browns are bad right, they’re awful but at the end of the day a win’s a win”, said Bengals fan Michelle Reynolds. He has done some good things and showed progress from a year ago.

Will we see Johnny Football against the 49ers?