Johnny Manziel Admits He Partied Before the NFL Combine - The Messenger
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Johnny Manziel ‘F—ed Up’ the Week Before the NFL Combine: ‘I Woke Up in a Hotel Room and Didn’t Know How I Got There’

In Netflix's 'Untold: Johnny Football,' Manziel explained how one night of partying nearly derailed his NFL career before it even began

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It was one of the biggest weeks of Johnny Manziel's life. The 2014 NFL Combine in Indianapolis was on the horizon, and everybody in the Heisman Trophy winner's inner circle was doing their best to make sure he made it there clean.

"I was drug testing him every other week," Manziel's former agent Erik Burkhardt said in Netflix's Untold: Johnny Football, "because I know that's gonna come up, and I want to be able to go, ‘Here's 25 drug tests. I've been testing him.’"

For most of the off-season, it was working.

"I was really, really good until the week before the Combine in Indy," Manziel said in the docuseries, "and I finally just broke."

Manziel was forced to break the news to Burkhardt, who was the one mostly responsible for attempting to keep him on the straight and narrow.

"He calls me and he's like, 'EB, I f---ed up,'" Burkhardt recalled. "Like, 'How bad?'" It was bad.

"I didn't remember much of the night," Manziel said. "I woke up in a hotel room and didn't know how I got there."

Untold: Johnny Football
Johnny Manziel in 'Untold: Johnny Football.'Netflix

Burkhardt remembered Manziel telling him, "Dude, I went to a party last night in the Hills. Everyone was there. All the rappers, all the actresses."

With the Combine just days away, Manziel said he didn't know if he was going to be able to pass a drug test.

"The only thing I’ve ever been told was, 'Fail a drug test at the combine,'" he said, "'you're gonna go from a first-round pick to maybe undrafted.'"

Johnny Manziel looks on during the spring game at Kyle Field on April 24, 2021 in College Station, Texas.
Johnny Manziel looks on during the spring game at Kyle Field on April 24, 2021 in College Station, Texas.Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

Luckily for Manziel, he and Burkhardt made sure he was clean by the time the official Combine drug test came around.

After passing the test, Manziel would eventually get drafted 22nd overall by the Cleveland Browns at the 2014 NFL Draft.

Untold: Johnny Football is now available on Netflix.

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