What the Johnny Manziel documentary gets right (and leaves out) about his Texas A&M years (2024)

There was Johnny Manziel. And there was Johnny Football.

The two personas of the former Texas A&M quarterback are the subject of Netflix’s latest sports documentary, “Untold: Johnny Football,” which premiered on Tuesday. It’s a fast-paced overview of the rise and fall of Manziel, who went from underrated recruit at Kerrville (Texas) Tivy High, to Heisman Trophy winner and full-blown celebrity as a redshirt freshman, to first-round draft pick of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, where he lasted only two seasons.

The documentary also shows his dark times, which included heavy drug use, a stint in rehab and a domestic violence accusation (the charges were later dismissed after he reached a deal with prosecutors). Manziel says that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and attempted suicide.

Manziel speaks at length in the 72-minute piece about the good and the bad.

“I wanted to be Johnny Football,” Manziel said, three minutes into the doc. “Johnny Football never had a bad time. So when people asked me, ‘Do you like the nickname Johnny Football?’

“I f—ing loved it. I thought it was awesome. JFF. Johnny F—ing Football. What’s up?”

I was a beat reporter covering the Aggies during Manziel’s historic two-year run at Texas A&M, so having a front row seat as his college career unfolded gave me a unique perspective when watching the documentary, which I found entertaining and compelling.

After watching the doc, here are some takeaways from what we saw and didn’t see (spoiler alert: key documentary plot points below):

Also, in case you missed it, Manziel spoke with The Athletic’s Jason Jones about the documentary for a story that appeared on Tuesday.

Stars of the show

Erik Burkhardt: Manziel’s agent stole the show. He didn’t appear until 45 minutes into the documentary, but he made the most of his time. Burkhardt’s detailing of Manziel’s pre-NFL Draft process, how he marketed him and the journey to becoming a first-round pick was fascinating.

Burkhardt recounted how they strategized to get Manziel to pass a drug test at the NFL Combine — from suggesting Manziel’s father Paul check himself into the hospital with “heavy heart” so Johnny could leave the combine without suspicion, to hiding store-bought drug tests from NFL scouts in the elevator of their Indianapolis hotel to Johnny chugging water and Pedialyte — with unmatched imagery and gusto.

Burkhardt said Manziel assured him that he knew how to pass the drug tests because he had been doing so at Texas A&M — “which, I come to find out on my own, it was their, like, fourth-string backup quarterback that was pissing for him at A&M.”

I’m suddenly wondering if Conner McQueen’s phone has blown up in the last two days.

Nate Fitch: Better known as “Uncle Nate,” Manziel’s friend and former personal assistant offers interesting perspective in his time on screen. He gives the details of the origins of Manziel’s autograph-signing “business” (as Fitch termed it), provides color on the celebrity-filled “Summer of Johnny” in 2013 and claims that he invented the story that Manziel’s family was wealthy to provide cover for the cash they were spending. “I invented the narrative that his family was vastly wealthy,” Fitch says in the doc.

The last part is fascinating because Manziel says in the documentary that “we sold a little bit of a dream that my family had more money than they actually did.” Paul Manziel told ESPN in 2013 of the supposed family fortune, “It’s not Garth Brooks money, but it’s a lot of money.”

Deadspin also wrote a deeply reported story in 2013 that ran two weeks after the ESPN story that suggested that Manziel’s great grandfather, Bobby Joe Manziel, made substantial money drilling for Texas oil in his heyday.

Regardless, the stories the Manziels and Fitch told worked. And the “Summer of Johnny” looked like a boatload of fun.

Manziel: Even when he was at Texas A&M, when Manziel spoke publicly, his personality usually came through. He didn’t speak as much as your typical Heisman Trophy winner or starting quarterback, in large part because of then-coach Kevin Sumlin’s policy that restricted freshmen from speaking to the media. By his second season, the headlines about his offseason and the autograph investigation made it to where Manziel wasn’t being trotted out in front of reporters every week.

I’ll never forget his appearance at SEC media days in 2013, which came on the heels of his leaving the Manning Passing Academy early amid accusations that he missed a meeting because he was hung over. I had never seen such a large swarm of reporters follow one person as much as they did Manziel that day.

The extended sit-down with him in the documentary was sure to be compelling, and it was. Manziel offered plenty of candor that helped fill in some blanks from his time at A&M and beyond.

It was fascinating to hear him discuss how he reacted to the criticism that came his way in the summer of 2013 as his celebrity grew, including that he hadn’t been at practice much. “F— your practice,” Manziel said in the doc. “I’m the best player in the country.”

The depths to which Manziel sank were eye-opening. Anyone who followed the news headlines in the aftermath of the Browns releasing Manziel knew things got bad. His father, Paul, who is interviewed in the documentary, told the Dallas Morning News in 2016 that he feared Johnny “won’t live to see his 24th birthday” after the former quarterback twice declined to be admitted to rehab facilities. But in the documentary, Johnny gives more details on his downward spiral.

Johnny said in the documentary that he ramped up his drug use to “a constant, daily thing,” using mostly cocaine and OxyContin. He dropped 40 pounds in the span of nine months. His relationship with his family became strained.

“The ride was over,” he said.

Manziel said he went back to Texas and showed up at his parents’ door, telling them he had nowhere else to turn.

“I don’t know if it’s been great, or if it’s been bad,” Paul said of Johnny’s journey. “But we’re blessed, and he’s still with us. And we can mend all the fences still.”

Nitpicks/things that were missing

Manziel’s verbal commitment to Oregon: When the documentary addresses Manziel’s college recruitment, there’s no mention made of Oregon, the school he committed to before pledging to A&M. Despite Manziel’s eye-popping high school statistics and immense athleticism, he was initially passed over by most in-state programs. His recruiting profiles showed Rice and Baylor as the only two Texas programs to offer him before the Aggies did.

He impressed then-Ducks coach Chip Kelly at an Oregon camp, enough to earn an offer. He committed in June 2010. But Tom Rossley, Texas A&M’s quarterbacks coach at the time, loved Manziel. Mike Sherman, then A&M’s head coach, preferred taller quarterbacks, and it required some convincing by Rossley to get Sherman on board.

Eventually, Rossley sold Sherman on Manziel and the Aggies offered. He flipped his commitment to A&M in September 2010.

The 2013 Chick-Fil-A Bowl: When the documentary covers “Johnny’s final game” in 2013, it shows a scene from A&M’s home finale against Mississippi State on Nov. 9, 2013. One problem: That wasn’t Manziel’s final game in an A&M uniform. It was his last home game.

The Aggies actually had three games after that: road games at LSU and Missouri to close out the regular season and the Chick-Fil-A Bowl on New Year’s Eve against Duke. The bowl was quite the ending for Manziel, because Duke jumped out to a 21-3 lead in the game’s first 16 minutes and led the Aggies 38-17 at halftime. But Manziel led the Aggies to 28 second-half offensive points, and cornerback Toney Hurd Jr. sealed the win with a pick six for a 52-48 win. Manziel threw for 382 yards, ran for 73 and accounted for five touchdowns.

Manziel’s teammates: There were no interviews with teammates of Manziel’s, either at A&M or Cleveland, in the documentary. One coach, Kliff Kingsbury — his offensive coordinator at A&M in 2012 — was in it, as was Burkhardt, Manziel’s parents, his sister Meri, and Fitch. Texas A&M sports information director Alan Cannon appears, as does Billy Liucci, the executive editor of TexAgs.com, a popular fan site that covers A&M athletics.

“We were hoping to get Mike Evans, it just became a little bit of a scheduling thing,” Ryan Duffy, the director of the documentary, told The Athletic. “Beyond that … Johnny the football player is a little bit more of a well-known story. I think for us, it was a little bit more interesting to get some texture into Johnny the family member, Johnny the brother, Johnny the son. And those relationships that carried through were a little bit more helpful in trying to understand him because Johnny’s career was so short.”

Duffy said in the limited time and space he had, the family members “were a better vehicle for us to really get to know the guy off the field.”

That makes sense, but it still would have been great to hear from some others, like Ryan Swope, Ben Malena, Spencer Nealy, Jake Matthews or any of a number of key members of those A&M teams.

Sumlin, the head coach at that time, isn’t interviewed, either. It would have been valuable to hear his perspective, especially since he was there for both years that Manziel started (Kingsbury was only at A&M for Manziel’s redshirt freshman season before taking the head coaching job at Texas Tech).

More context around … everything: Manziel was a one-of-a-kind star, but there wasn’t much context offered into how good that 2012 A&M team was around him. From Evans to the offensive line (which had four NFL Draft picks and three first-rounders) to the defense (which allowed just 21.8 points per game in 2012), it wasn’t a one-man show.

It’s also worth noting that A&M’s style of offense combined with Manziel’s talents influenced SEC football in a big way. In the following years, Alabama coach Nick Saban adjusted the way his teams played, from the types of defensive players he recruited to the style of offense the Crimson Tide ran. More teams in the conference began favoring a wide-open, up-tempo offensive style.

In the documentary, they fly through Manziel’s sophomore season, which had a lot of interesting ups and downs, from the second Alabama game to a close loss in the final minutes at home to Auburn to the aforementioned Chick-Fil-A Bowl.

Given Manziel’s college career and post-football life, it feels as if the documentary could have been at least a half hour longer to explore some of the topics covered in a more in-depth way.

Lasting impression

Overall, the documentary is an entertaining hour-plus that gives the casual viewer and fan a good window into the phenomenon that was Johnny Football. But I definitely came away wishing there was more there.

It would have been nice to see more of the 2013 season, because there was real tension there. Manziel’s celebrity and everything that came from that summer, the autograph investigation and the high preseason expectations — not to mention the pressure it put on the entire football program in addition to Manziel — made for a volatile situation that challenged everyone. By training camp in August 2013, some folks in the program were more than ready for the drama that came with Manziel to be over. Interviews with Sumlin or some teammates would have been nice to have here.

What stood out most to me was that even though Manziel enjoyed everything that came with his celebrity, it became too much. When the documentary showed the clip of his first press conference in December 2012, a week before the Heisman Trophy ballots were due, A&M sports information director Alan Cannon told the assembled press that Manziel would turn 20 in a matter of days. To reckon with that much attention at that age? It’s hard to fathom.

When the ESPN piece dropped in 2013, it foreshadowed a lot of Manziel’s later struggles. Paul Manziel even says in the story that he and Michelle feared “it could come unraveled. And when it does, it’s gonna be bad. Real bad.” That stayed with me, and I kept thinking about it as Johnny spiraled years later.

In the documentary, Manziel says of his first year in Cleveland, “I had every single thing that I could’ve ever wanted … and when I got everything that I wanted, I think I was the most empty that I’ve ever felt inside.”

That quote was telling, as was Burkhardt’s assertion that Manziel called him during his early days in Cleveland, remarking he wasn’t having fun. Regardless of the drama when Manziel was at A&M, it was clear he loved football. It showed on Saturdays. But everything changed once that went away at the next level. To be an NFL quarterback, you have to treat it like a job, something he didn’t do.

“If he wanted to do it, his skill set and how good he is as a player, he could’ve done it,” Kingsbury says in the documentary. “He just never worked at it.”

It’s clear the football chapter of his life is over, and he told The Athletic’s Jason Jones that, at 30, he’s “definitely a lot more stable and happy now.” It’s good to hear that he reconciled with his family. I hope he has more better days ahead.

In Aggieland, he was a marvel. He was must-see TV every Saturday. He made a lot of money for Texas A&M and people around him (and, given the details revealed in the documentary, he made a decent amount for himself, too).

There was nobody quite like Johnny Football.

— The Athletic‘s David Ubben contributed reporting.

(Photo: Joe Robbins / Getty Images)