ESPN loves them some Manziel:
That's 26% of all mentions last night.
That's 26% of all mentions last night.
By the numbers, as aggregated from closed captioning:
Obviously, there's some survivorship bias here, with Manziel falling to the 22nd pick. However, even simply going by mentions after the player's slot (and ESPN talked about Manziel clean through n0t only his 22nd slot, but basically the entire 23rd slot as well), Manziel racked up 14 mentions after his slot package. Clowney had five, Bortles had four, and each had a good deal longer than Manziel to be mentioned again.
- ESPN brought up Manziel's name 83 times, and referred to him as "Johnny Football" 30 more.
- The total of 113 mentions outpaces that of the top five draft picks combined.
- #1 overall pick Jadeveon Clowney came in second, earning 29 mentions on ESPN.
- The network's longest period of time without mentioning Manziel: 18 minutes, 50 seconds—spanning the first three picks of the draft.