'Johnny Football' Manziel flipped off the Washington Redskins during Monday's Browns loss

'Johnny Football' Manziel flipped off the Washington Redskins during Monday's Browns loss
(Image credit: Twitter/BleacherReport)

Less than three weeks before the NFL season officially opens, the Cleveland Browns still don't have a starting quarterback. Monday night's preseason game against the Washington Redskins was sold as a duel between the two candidates, Johnny Manziel and Brian Hoyer. Neither quarterback performed well, the Browns lost 24-23, and coach Mike Pettine says he still hasn't picked his starter.

The game will most likely be remembered, though, for an apparently frustrated Manziel's one-finger salute to the Washington Redskins bench after an incomplete pass in the third quarter.

Pettine says he learned about the obscene gesture after the game, and "it does not sit well." This won't really factor into whether "Johnny Football" gets the starting slot, he added, but "it's something we'll obviously address with him."

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Manziel, for his part, seems mostly chagrined that his extended middle finger was caught on tape. "I get words exchanged with me throughout the entirety of the game, every game, week after week," he said after the game. "I should have been smarter. It's a Monday Night Football game. I mean the cameras were probably solidly on me, so I just need to be smarter about that." Manziel, a first-round draft pick from Texas A&M, will earn an average of $2.1 million a year in his four year contract with the Browns.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.