Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan had seen enough. This is the same Kyle Shanahan who endured the Robert Griffin III circus in 2013 that eventually cost him and his father, then-coach Mike Shanahan, their jobs.
But drafting Johnny Manziel to the Browns in May 2014 ratcheted up the craziness and Shanahan decided it was in his best interests to go elsewhere ... anywhere. We wrote of the reported friction earlier in the month, but now ESPN.com's Jeremy Fowler and Pat McManamon paint a bleaker picture of just how dysfunctional things had become in the seven months since Manziel joined the organization.
From Fowler and McManamon: "Those who spoke talked of a yearlong pattern that showed a lack of commitment and preparation, a failure to be ready when given a chance in his first start against Cincinnati and a continued commitment to nightlife, which affected his preparation and work while in the team facility."
As one player put it: Manziel's 2014 season could be summed up in three words: "100 percent joke."
In the weeks and months leading up to the draft, there were questions about Manziel's physical skills, but also about the off-field issues -- partying, mostly -- and that likely scared off a lot of quarterback-needy teams. But once Manziel started to slip on draft night, the Browns traded back into the first round and selected him 22nd overall, the same picks the team had years earlier used on quarterbacks Brady Quinn and Brandon Weeden.
"During the draft process, not one person interviewed by the team said he was going to grow up," one source directly involved in the drafting of Manziel told ESPN.com. "You can't blame Johnny. This is who he is. The team knew that."
It's the logic used when Redskins owner Dan Snyder was handing out those hysterically high-priced contracts to over-the-hill stars: Don't blame the guy cashing the checks, blame the guy writing them.
But pointing fingers at owner Jimmy Haslam, or the hobo who talked Haslam into taking Manziel, doesn't magically fix all this. The Browns are stuck with a quarterback that doesn't appear to have any interest in being good at his job.
Some veterans "clearly didn't want to play for [Manziel]" because of the lack of readiness, and they responded better to undrafted rookie Connor Shaw in part because he knew the plays, sources said. It wasn't lost on players that Shaw played through a dislocated finger on his left hand and a rib injury that had him passing blood after the season finale, while Manziel played six quarters before hurting his hamstring, then missed treatment on the injury on the final Saturday because he was still in bed.
It's telling that new offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said this Thursday: "We're not sure if our starting quarterback is in the building or not. If he is, great, if he isn't, great, too."
But the Browns won't give up on Manziel before he has one more chance to prove himself. Put another way, if he flops in 2015, he'll join Quinn and Weeden on the Browns' former first-round quarterback scrap heap, another depressing footnote for a team that can't seem to ever get out of its own way.
"What Johnny has to understand is [if] he has another year like he just had, he's not going to be famous anymore," one NFL team executive told ESPN.com. "LeBron James is going to lose his number."
