Kirby Smart certainly hasn’t forgotten about Johnny Manziel’s off-field antics.
When speaking at the Nike Coach of the Year Clinic over the weekend, the Georgia Bulldogs coach savagely jabbed the former Texas A&M quarterback, who infamously flamed out of the NFL after two turbulent seasons.
In a presentation that featured Manziel, Joe Burrow, Bryce Young and Cam Newton, Smart noted all were Heisman Trophy winners. But when someone inquired if each was a champion, the two-time national title-winning coach offered a brutal response in the case of the Browns’ former first-round pick.
“Champion of what? Champion of Fireball,” Smart said, drawing laughter from the crowd, according to a video shared Monday by On3 Sports.
Smart was the defensive coordinator at Alabama when Manziel led the Aggies to a 29-24 upset of the Crimson Tide in 2012.
It helped him turn into a college football sensation as he became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy that season.
He declared for the 2014 NFL Draft following his sophomore season with the Aggies and was selected by the Browns as the No. 22 overall pick.
Although he attained mass success at the college level, Manziel struggled mightily in the pros, admitting to watching zero film while grappling with substance abuse issues.
The Browns cut Manziel in March 2016, two months after a famed misadventure to Las Vegas, where his attempt to go incognito blew up in his face.
Two years later, Manziel spoke candidly about his substance abuse struggles and bipolar diagnosis in an interview with “Good Morning America.”
“I was self-medicating with alcohol. That’s what I thought would make me happy and get out of that depression,” Manziel said in 2018.
In the wake of his NFL ouster, Manziel played in the CFL (Canadian Football League), the now-defunct Alliance of American Football and the Fan-Controlled Football League.
Manziel reflected on his real-life roller-coaster in the 2023 Netflix docuseries “Untold: Johnny Football.”
“I think people do maybe worry about me sometimes, but I mean… that’s natural. You know, I’ve given them reason to do that,” he said in the program.
“I didn’t go into Texas A&M thinking I was gonna play two years and end up in the NFL Draft … And I tell people all the time, it wouldn’t have mattered where I was at, what team. Wherever it was at that point in time in my life, I was incapable of being a good NFL quarterback.”
