How?

Maybe, it should be why?  I have my own opinions and I suppose everyone does.  But, Monday Night Football tonight, is dominated by that question that comes to my mind whenever I see this story.

Spoiled rich kid, overly indulged, with some legitimate physical skills, gets to play at a big school, where the bright light coach continues the enabling and indulging attitude.  He violates NCAA rules over signatures, not because he needs money, he is rich, but because he is either dumb and/or foolish.

He gets drafted in the first round of the draft, by a miserable franchise, full of hope.  It is a horrible fit.  He is way too leaky a vessel to hold hope, and way too poor a character to build unity or a team around.  Anyone with a lick of football sense can see it, and understands it.

This is the path that many have followed, Jim McMahon, Ryan Leaf, just not capable of holding the bowl full of anything but disappointment and foolishness.  Cleveland has plenty of understanding as to what this means.  They have now officially wasted 2 years on a commodity that may have another season, at most, left in him, before he kills someone driving drunk, gets into the whole rape allegations drunk monkeying with every one of the hangers-on at the bar, or popped with dope in the car, high rolling his "friends".

Allen Iverson, Michael Vick, those are other examples from the other side of the tracks.  I was in Hampton Roads when both Iverson and Vick came out of high school as hugely talented athletes.  They went on to college, and lots of home town issues that got covered up and glossed over by their powerful college coaches.  Iverson started a riot that ended up getting someone killed, and somehow John Thompson convinced Doug Wilder to pardon him and declare him a hero.

Want to know why Iverson is not the greatest of all time, or in the conversation?  It is not because he did not have the talent, he had every bit of talent that Jordan had.  He had an enabler as a coach and absolutely no one in his life to make him leave the bad elements of his life behind, and focus on being an adult and a man.  I can't tell you how many times one of his houses or one of his cars were busted full of felons and drugs.  Maybe Iverson was there too and the cops let him go, in Virginia he could literally cause deaths and get away with it.  But, the gang thugs were always there in trouble in Iverson's property.

Michael Vick did not find dog fighting buddies on the Atlanta Falcons.  They came from the projects he grew up in.  They were constantly around him and his family, they never got shed of them.  It took down his brother Marcus as well.

It is sad when folks with those kinds of skills and abilities do not find the missing link in their lives, which is structure and discipline.  That is where Johnny Football is, all his drunk frat boy buddies and the hangers-on, out partying.  I don't have anything against partying, in moderation, and without endangering your livelihood and the livelihood of others.  When you have responsibilities, you have to take them seriously.

I read all the comments on line, about how it was just a beer, Greg Hardy gets to beat women, blah, blah, blah.  That is exactly what has created Johnny Football.  Mike Pettine is the absolute best thing that could ever happen to the young man, though most don't see it.  Someone finally looked him in the eye and told him to stop being a selfish, foolish, punk.  And, since you didn't listen to us, lied to us and generally told us to go screw ourselves, for you own pleasure, you get to sit your one prime time shot.  You get to be third string, but you should be cut.

If you want to be a man, you have to act like a man.  If you want respect, you have to earn it.  The NFL, the world, will not give you anything of worth, regardless of your background, that you do not earn.  You can get money by inheriting it.  You can get fame by having the right name.  But, respect, honor, understanding, those things are earned.  They are earned with integrity and personal values.  Meaning what you say, saying what you mean, being a person of reliability.

You don't get things of worth because your Dad's rich.  You don't get things of worth because you can throw a footall 70 yards in the air.  You don't get things of worth because you can hit a baseball 410 feet.  You get things of worth because you work hard with those attributes.  You take on responsibility for the team and for the outcome.

Everyone that has ever played team sports has known that athlete that was gifted but not committed.  If you were like me, and had to work for all the physical things, those folks were frustrating.  They could show up, do things that I spent days practicing and still could not do, and did not care.  It was not important.

And, they were just games.  It was not important, in terms of world priorities, but it was important from a life lesson standpoint.  I have known Johnny Football guys.  Great fun to watch play.  Unbelievable what they could do.  But the other athletes around them are always disappointed because they know that it is nothing compared to what could be possible if they showed up and practiced and dedicated themselves to the craft.

Coaches put up with them, only when they are not much in the way of a coach.  Especially at the public school and college level, and it rarely works out for them.  The coaches that discipline them and instruct them have one of two outcomes...they get fired, because you know you benched Johnny Football, and we already suck, OR, the star gets gone, because their agents don't make much money with a bench warmer.  It is a bad place.

What I want to pass on to all those people so upset at benching Manziel for his behavior, and I lost track of how many comments I heard and read with the same message, is simple.  The organization is paying this 22 year old to be a professional.  Do other athletes behave badly, yes.  Do other athletes promise you, as their coach, to not do it again, and end up in the news less than 7 days later?  Maybe, maybe not.  I doubt many do with Mike Pettine.  You would not know it, because it is the Browns.

But, the millions this young man is  getting paid, is to learn to lead, learn to operate at an elite level, and learn to be the face of the franchise.  That is the job description.  Whether you like it or not, if you are able to make it to the starting quarterback of an NFL franchise, you are the face of that franchise.  If I am the Cleveland Browns, I don't like Johnny Football's face as the respresentative of my franchise.

In a year, I don't make anywhere near what these guys make in one game.  But, I have a huge responsibility to earn what I make, within the role I have.  I am paid to be a leader.  Whatever else I know about mechanicals, electricity, maintenance, reliability, planning, I am paid to be a leader.  If I cannot do that, and am not willing to work at doing that, and am not driven to do it better every day, I am not going to last in any position.

It frustrates me to see people of talent and skill waste it.  It is not my lot to fix.  But, as for me, I stand behind Mike Pettine, and what he has stood up for on the Browns.  I hope that Manziel understands it, and takes the lesson and the learning.  Because look, the Browns are a professional franchise.  As bad as the football product looks on the field on Sundays, it is professional level football.  They are a couple of key players and key coaches away from being competitive.  They are only a couple of leaders away from being special.

It goes the other way too, for the same reasons.  Look at San Fran.  Harbaugh goes away, and look at the beautiful performance of Kaperniek.  Wait, it is not beautiful?  It is not and it is not leadership and it is not working.  Before too many people get worked up to firing Pettine, think about who you will rather have long term.  A prima donna that can't go 48 hours without being a clown, or a coach with the balls to look the prima donna up and down and bench him?  Leaders are needed on the sideline too.

It is that way in all of life.  Without leadership, things don't work.  Without dedicaton, care, concern, things do not imporve.  Without the selfless dedication to make those around you better, great things are not possible.  You don't have to be kissie/huggie to get there, but you better perform at the level you expect of others.  And don't get upset if you level is subpar, and that leads to finding new opportunities.  That is the way it works.

Football is a game, but in the NFL it is a profession.  If you cannot be professional in pursuit of it, bad things are going to happen to you in the NFL.  It makes me frustrated.  Why do people with so much talent not utilize it to the maximum extent possible?  What makes you work hard enough to get half way there, and be unwilling to go all the rest of the way?  How internally lazy can you be?

Even I, probably the least tolerant RGIII complainer on the planet will say this much.  That man has done all that he can to approach things as a professional.  Imagine, just imagine if he was physically equal to his effort?  If hunks of him did not snap and pop off every time someone bigger than a safety hit him, he would be truly special.

Manziel will never be special, without some serious change.  And he has not shown any willingness or capacity to change in 6 years on the big stage.