Former Heisman Winner States NIL Would've Changed Decision Leaving Early for NFL

Former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel believes that NIL would have made him stay in college longer.

Brett Davis-Imagn Images

In the early 2010s, Johnny Manziel took over the college football world while he was at Texas A&M. During that time, “Johnny Football” became a household name for everyone who watched the sport. 

As he went on to win the Heisman trophy as a freshman, the former Aggies quarterback left early for the NFL draft only not to reach expectations and be pushed out of the league just a short two years after it began. Ironically, it would have been the same time his college eligibility would have come to an end.

With the recent changes to the entire landscape of college football, mainly with how student-athletes are able to market themselves with NIL (name, image, and likeness), the former Cleveland Browns football player couldn’t help but wonder what that would have done to the trajectory of his career if the same benefits were offered to him when he was playing at the collegiate level.

On a recent episode of his podcast, Glory Daze, Manziel stated that returning to Texas A&M for his junior season would probably have been more beneficial for the quarterback if NIL had been in the cards back then. 

“I think for me, obviously being able to make an amount of money like that, I would’ve made more money staying in college than I probably would’ve on a rookie contract,” said Manziel. “So I felt pressure to go to the NFL to try and make a dollar amount that nobody in my family had really, I didn’t see from my dad, I didn’t see from anybody else that was in my immediate family."

After winning the Heisman trophy in his freshman season with the Aggies after throwing for 3,706 yards and 26 touchdowns and following it up with a fifth-place finish in the award race the very next season, Manziel would have easily been one of the highest-paid athletes in NIL valuation based on today’s standards. 

Instead, he felt the need to chase a paycheck by heading to the pros. When the Browns drafted him in the first round, Manziel signed a rookie contract with the team worth $8.2 million over four seasons. If NIL was around, he believes he could have made more by remaining in school and possibly growing into a better player for the next level. 

“So for me it was a huge financial incentive to be able to do it. If I could have stayed in college and stayed in school and continued to live the life that I was living while making money, I think for me it would’ve been an absolute game changer.”

Manziel was the center of attention for many things during his collegiate career, with some of them becoming problems for him getting on the field. He was suspended after an investigation where he allegedly accepted payments for autographs, an “inadvertent violation,” according to the NCAA. Ironically, if the same occurrence would have happened in the current age of NIL, a player would be more than welcome to profit off their own autograph signings. 

There is no way of knowing if two more seasons of ‘Johnny Football’ in college football would have turned out to be the better idea for the now 31-year-old, but it sure is fun to think about having him on the Aggies for another run with the program. In the two seasons, Manziel decided to forgo, Texas A&M finished each year with an 8-5 record, both worse than any year with the former Heisman winner under center.