Humour: Johnny Manziel to endorse new range of kids wear

Johnny Manziel

For all those alien to NFL, Johnny Manziel is an American football quarterback, better known as ‘Johnny Football’. He played for the Texas A&M University, and proved himself to be one of the most creative and skilled quarterbacks around. The 2014 NFL Draft will see him as one of the top picks, but there is something which concerns Johnny, and that is his height.

A week after he assured that he would measure “72 inches on the dot” at the NFL Scouting Combine, he came up just short of the mark in the official measurement.

He measured in at 5-foot-11 3/4, and weighed 207 pounds. And while this new development has adversely affected his prospects at the 2014 NFL draft, it has also augmented his marketability.

Nike seems to disagree with NFL about the height requirement by signing the former Heisman winner (first freshman winner) to a multimillion, multi-year contract, which will see Manziel as the new face of Nike’s youth wear. Let me rephrase that – it’s not ‘youth wear’, it’s child wear!

“Johnny is a unique athlete because he has the talents, abilities and production of a star football player, but he does it in a child-sized body,” said Nike Kids CEO Jeff McGill. “He’s basically what little kids everywhere dream about when they’re playing sports.”

Last month Manziel was at Nike’s Beaverton, Oregon headquarters for a meeting, which was intended to endorse him as all other athletes would, but then Nike decided to step it a notch higher, by giving the endorsement a surreal twist.

“He looked like a little kid dressing up like his dad,” said Nike CEO Mark Parker. “He couldn’t reach most of the stuff on the racks and the neck of a hooded sweatshirt fell down over his shoulders. We were all kind of bummed out because we realized it wasn’t going to work out with Nike and Johnny, but then it hit me … Nike kids!”

So apart from the NFL draft, ‘Johnny Football’ will now also be concerned about marketing child-sized athletic and lifestyle wear, which includes pants and shirts. “Just Play” is what the Nike Kids tagline says, and it seems quite apt as it connects directly with children. To a certain degree, it also reflects much of what Manziel does off the pitch, being the party animal that he is, but always focused enough to combine work and play.

“I play with a lot of heart; I play with a lot of passion. I played like I’m 10-feet tall, so the measurement to me is just a number,” he says. Yet, when the Nike Kids commercial hits flat screens all over America, he might not feel 10-feet any more.

Johnny seems to like the way things are progressing this year, and hopes to make a name for himself with Nike like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, but in his own style, by being the new face of kids wear in America.

Now who cares if NFL head coach Barry Switzer Johnny Manziel thinks Johnny boy is “an arrogant little p****”? All that the fans will be looking forward to is the archetypal Super Bowl-quality TV commercial, with the star quarterback endorsing kids wear.

Disclaimer: This is a piece of fiction and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Nike Signs Johnny Manziel to be the Face of their Child-Sized Shoes and Apparel – http://t.co/dTe6fcvcxn pic.twitter.com/eEJv4UVaKm

— SportsPickle (@sportspickle) March 7, 2014