He was college football’s anti-hero. The guy who dazzled on the field and would flash the money sign after every big score. Johnny Manziel would talk some trash to your defense and then rifle off a bomb for a score or scramble through all the defenders on his way into the endzone. Texas A&M had their first Heisman winner since 1957, he was the first freshman to win the Heisman trophy in college football history and the NFL was going to have a new outspoken star in their fold. But in a matter of three years, it all came crashing down for Johnny Manziel. He now explains what happened.
Manziel, 25, battled a number of off-field issues dating back to his days at College Station. He lost his big name representation, endorsements ran away and he was eventually cut from the Cleveland Browns. But now as Manziel weighs his future in the NFL and beyond, the quarterback opens up on how he fell from grace.
Good Morning America had Manziel on their broadcast on Monday morning and he touched on his drinking problems, depression, a bipolar disorder diagnosis and a potential return to the NFL.
Former NFL star @JManziel2 reflects on 'mistakes,' reveals bipolar diagnosis in an exclusive interview with @tjholmes. https://t.co/gZfdnK5Ybz pic.twitter.com/eZl0XPpUzN
— Good Morning America (@GMA) February 12, 2018
“I was self-medicating with alcohol. That’s what I thought was making me happy and helping me get out of that depression to a point of where I felt like I had some sense of happiness. But at the end of the day, when you wake up the next day after a night like that or after going on a trip like that, and you wake up the next day and that’s all gone and that liquid courage or that liquid like sense of euphoria that’s over you is all gone, and you’re left staring at the ceiling by yourself, and you’re back in that depression and back in that hole, that dark hole of sitting in a room by yourself being super-depressed, thinking about all the mistakes you’ve made in your life, what did that get me? Where did that get me except out of the NFL? Where did that get me? Disgraced?”
