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Will the Browns be Bold With Johnny Manziel Against the Titans?

Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

This week, Marshall Faulk said, "Being GMC Professional Grade means being bold and decisive -- at the quarter mark of the season, it’s time to put a stake in the ground," and then asked us the following question: "What bold decision would you like to see from your team?"

Everyone knows that I absolutely love QB Brian Hoyer as the starter, but I think the Browns can be a bit bolder at the position with the utilization of QB Johnny Manziel. In Week 2 and Week 3 against the Saints and Ravens, Manziel's first play saw him coming in and handing the ball off via the read-option. Right now, that's all opposing teams can really go on, but Titans defensive coordinator Ray Horton expects the Browns to get Manziel involved in a creative manner having had the bye week to prepare:

"With a week off they’ll have something. Kyle Shanahan appears to be a philosopher of Machiavellian. He wants to sit here and do tricky stuff all the time. They’ll have something for us, whether it’s Manziel, two quarterbacks back there. We just have to be prepared for him coming in. ... [In order to stop Manziel], I think, in theory, you want him to throw the ball versus run the ball. Obviously he caught the ball. They can do anything they want with him. They can flex him out. We just have to be ready to play football."

I think defenses will be creeping up to the line of scrimmage, focused on stopping the read-option if Manziel is in the game. How about if Manziel runs a playaction fake and sees if a guy like Jordan Cameron or Travis Benjamin are open down the field? If not, he can improvise and try to make something happen.

Is our offense good enough to get by without including Manziel? Probably...but if we find a way to craft the Manziel package correctly, it could really give this team an "X-factor" moving forward.

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