Doug Flutie opens up on just how tough CFL will be for Manziel
This week, Johnny Manziel joined his new team, the Canadian Football League’s Hamilton Tiger-Cats, for training camp.
Manziel has gotten in a few throws but has spent most of his time watching and trying to get a feel for the differences in pro football north of the border. The CFL has a larger field, three downs, multiple players in motion and 12 men on the field for each team.
Doug Flutie — who went from the NFL to the CFL and back again, like Manziel is hoping to do — says the former Cleveland Brown will need to master the Canadian game if he wants to make a similar transition.
“In Johnny’s situation, very similar to me, there’s a learning curve that goes on up there and you’re competing against guys who are veterans in the league and know what they’re doing,” Flutie told NBC Sports’ Michael David Smith. “You really have to learn that game and get efficient at it to win championships and be at that caliber.”
He said Manziel won’t succeed unless he’s fully committed to learning the Canadian game in a short period of time.
“He needs to be a leader on the team, show that he’s serious about football again, and put his nose to the grindstone and go,” Flutie said.
Manziel was a first-round pick of the Browns in 2014 but found himself out of the league in two years, largely because of off-the-field issues and immaturity.
The former Texas A&M star has spent the past year touting his “ComebackSZN,” which it turns out will happen in Ontario. Manziel signed with the Tiger-Cats on Saturday.
Manziel said Tuesday he had talked to Flutie about the CFL during a recent Heisman Trophy event (Flutie won the award while at Boston College).
“That’s a person who I talked to about this for sure,” he told SportsNet, saying Flutie is “a guy who has laid out the blueprint for what a lot of people here are trying to do.”
“I don’t think the CFL is exactly everyone’s end game, for some people it definitely is, but guys are striving to get to the NFL and Doug did that,” Manziel said. “Guys like [former CFL and NFL star] Warren Moon did that, they played up here at a very high level and then went down and had success in the NFL.
“[Flutie] thought this game would translate to what I do very well. He spoke very highly of everything up here and how it shaped him and where he is in his life. We had good talks about it, and I’m very appreciative to have somebody like that that I can reach out to any time to talk to.”
Flutie knows of what he speaks. The diminutive signal caller was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in 1985 but signed with the USFL’s New Jersey Generals (owned by Donald Trump). After the league folded, Flutie spent time in the NFL with the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots, but he couldn’t hang on to a starting job.
In 1990, he signed with the CFL’s BC Lions, and he struggled in his first season. In the second, however, Flutie threw for an incredible 6,619 yards — a league record — and he would go on to become one of the CFL’s all-time greats. He won a Grey Cup with the Calgary Stampeders and two more with the Toronto Argonauts. In his eight CFL seasons, Flutie passed for 41,355 yards and 270 touchdowns and was named the league’s Most Outstanding Player a record six times.
That opened the door for his return to the NFL in 1998 with the Buffalo Bills, and he stayed in the league for eight more years.
Manziel was asked Tuesday whether he thinks he could have a Flutie-type impact in the CFL.
“Right now I’m struggling to see how many guys are on the field and what the defense is doing,” he said via the National Post. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
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