Johnny Manziel discusses impact NIL would have had on his career

Former Heisman Trophy winner and Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel made close to $8 million over the course of his NFL career, but he thinks if he’d played in today’s landscape, with the emergence of Name, Image, and Likeness deals as a way for collegiate athletes to get paid, he’d have made much more than that.

Manziel recently said in an interview with Greg McElroy that the money he’d have made in college would have been much more than he got from his contract as the 22nd overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft.

“I would’ve taken a pay cut had I gone to the NFL,” Manziel said.

Manziel declared for the NFL draft early, with two years of eligibility remaining at the college level, and is insistent that he’d never have made that decision if he’d have been able to legally get paid as a student athlete.

“I think no matter what, being in the NIL era, if that would have been the equivalent of 2013, I would have stayed no matter what,” Manziel said. “Just because a couple million bucks in College Station goes a really, really long way.

And, you go to the NFL, you’re a first round pick you sign for $10 million or whatever it is, that’s the two years that I had remaining at Texas A&M, to be able to make through NIL. So I think, for me, when I think back about it now, I definitely, if there would have been any real money involved, I definitely would have stayed no matter what.”

Manzield noted that with NIL, you can line things up with or without taking the route of a professional athlete.

“You can be a four-year starter in the NIL world and set yourself up really, really nice whether you go to the next level or not.”