22th Pick – After an agonizing two-hour, 45-minute wait in the green room, Johnny Manziel is now a Cleveland Brown. And apparently he’s got a homeless guy to thank for his new gig.

Manziel’s fall through the ranks was one of the early stories of the draft, and once he was picked, ESPN cut to Sal Paolantonio in Cleveland with one heck of a strange story. According to Paolantonio, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam received guidance from an unlikely source.

“Here in Cleveland, everywhere I go, people know me,” Haslam told Paolantonio. “I was out to dinner recently. A homeless person was out on the street. He looked up at me and said, ‘Draft Manziel.'”

And that’s all it took, apparently, to convince Haslam that Browns fans wanted Manziel. Cleveland!

Suddenly the decision making skills of the Browns franchise over the years makes a lot more sense. I’m not saying homeless people aren’t great evaluators of talent, but I’d probably go a diffrent route if I owned a multi million dollar franchise. Maybe ex coaches or players? Or any of the scouts you pay to evaluate talent. The crazy part of this story is not the homeless guy telling Jimmy Haslam to draft Manziel. Johnny Football is the man, and I guarantee in a few years he’ll be a great quarterback. The crazy part of this story is that Haslam made it seem like a homeless guy convinced him to draft Manziel. Forget about the combine and the game footage; all Jim Haslam needs is the advice of a sage homeless man. All I can picture now is Jim Haslam scowering the streets of Cleveland on the eve of every draft night looking for that one man or woman who’s going to give him his picks. Only in Cleveland.

– Ryan