Johnny Manziel Vows to Get Sober on July 1st and the NFL Will Apparently Be Waiting to Help

Johnny Manziel is on vacation right now. On vacation from what, no one knows, but he’s in Mexico, wearing a Josh Gordon jersey. According to TMZ, he’s sharing a mansion with 20 people, some of whom he doesn’t know, and is planning to get sober on July 1st.

He told TMZ this after one of the strangers in the house posted a picture on Snapchat of tiny baggies. Yes, Manziel is straight up being asked whether drugs belong to him when they appear nearby on the internet. And when he denies ownership of (alleged) drugs, that’s a multi-publication headline.

Meanwhile, the NFL is apparently trying to bring Manziel back into the fold – even if it’s just on a human level. NFL vice president of football operations Troy Vincent appeared on The Rob Maaddi Show on ESPN’s Philly radio station and talked about Manziel. Via Yahoo!:

" “… As you can imagine, that’s our greatest challenge and personally, the greatest fear,” Vincent said. “It’s what you go to bed every night thinking how do you assist someone that’s really not interested or quite frankly doesn’t want to meet you halfway. “You can have all the resources and they’re endless, confidential resources in your hometown, the individual club where the players or family members live. They’re there. They’re available. But if an individual is not willing to meet you halfway to get assistance, it’s very difficult because it’s something you can’t make an individual do anything.” “In this particular case, it’s obvious it’s gotten out of control,” Vincent said. “You see his parents … When a father speaks out about losing his son to potentially substance abuse, you know there’s a problem. Johnny’s not returning phone calls. He’s in different states. “You kind of see him, you get notice of where he is off social media and that’s a challenge, but we won’t stop. We’ll continue to keep reaching out, letting Johnny know we love him, we care for him and we’re here when he’s willing and wants and is able to accept assistance, we’ll be there for him.” "

Perhaps the NFL has decided that since they’re going to be connected to any story about Manziel, they should probably try to do something to help him. Perhaps this is the first case of the league actually trying to help players who are no longer a part of their current system? Or maybe this is just a high profile, one-time-only example. Maybe they’ll see how this human reclamation project goes before deciding to help others their game is done with on the field.