When he was at Texas A&M, Johnny Manziel was one of the best Aggies players in school history.
The quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in 2012 and had College Station wrapped around his finger.
Things changed dramatically when Manziel went to the NFL.
“Johnny Football,” as he was nicknamed, said he attempted suicide when he was cut by the Cleveland Browns in 2016.
The now-30-year-old Manziel explained in a not-yet-released Netflix documentary, Untold: Johnny Football, how he “went and bought a gun that I knew I was gonna use.”
“I think I was just running from problems,” Manziel said, according to the New York Post. “Direct self-sabotage, trying to burn this thing down. I had planned to do everything that I wanted to do at that point in my life. Spend as much money as I possibly could, and then my plan was to take my life.
Manziel, who said he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has admitted to struggles with substance abuse, explained he wanted to go on a “$5-million bender” before attempting to kill himself.
“Months prior, went and bought a gun that I knew I was gonna use. I wanted it to get as bad as humanly possible to where it made sense, and it made it seem like an excuse and an out for me.”
But the firearm malfunctioned, Manziel shared.
“Still, to this day, I don’t know what happened, but the gun just clicked on me,” he said in the documentary, according to ESPN.
At Texas A&M, Manziel was measured at 6 feet, 209 pounds. But after using OxyContin and cocaine daily during the 2015 NFL season, he said he dropped to 175 pounds in September.
The former first-round draft pick faced a misdemeanor assault charge after being accused of hitting and threatening his then-girlfriend in January 2016.
The Browns made him the 22nd overall pick in 2014. He flamed out quickly.
“[It] didn’t take me very long to be in Cleveland to find out that I wasn’t gonna be happy there,” Manziel said. “I had every single thing that I could’ve ever wanted. You have money, you have fame, you’re a first-round draft pick battling for a starting quarterback position, and when I got everything that I wanted, I think I was the most empty that I’ve ever felt inside.”
Manziel’s agent, Erik Burkhardt, said he “started seeing signs pretty early on in Cleveland” that his client was unhappy in his new NFL reality.
“He’d call me after practice, like, ‘I don’t… Man, it’s not fun anymore,’” Burkhardt said, the New York Post reported.
Manziel said he returned to his family in Texas after the suicide attempt. At first, he did not want professional help.
“It’s been a long, long road, and I don’t know if it’s been great or it’s been bad — that’s kind of still up for debate,” his father, Paul Manziel, said in the documentary, according to multiple reports. “But we’re blessed. And he’s still with us. And we can mend all the fences still. I think Johnny’s got a lot better days coming than what he’s had.”
Manziel plans to open a bar in College Station. In a post on Instagram, he said his business would be in the Northgate district, a short walk from the Texas A&M campus.
“Always wanted my own shot bar on Northgate,” his post read. “Coming soon,” he added at the bottom.
The bar, which will be called “Johnny Manziel’s Money Bar,” is set to open in Fall 2023, according to the bar’s Instagram page.
Untold: Johnny Football is scheduled for release on Netflix on Tuesday.
