Johnny Manziel re-hires agent, presumably to try comeback, but who would sign him?

Johnny Manziel hired his old agent, Erik Burkhardt, who dropped Manziel last year. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport said Burkhardt took Manziel back after “Burkhardt had him make serious commitments.”

And that is supposedly the signal that Manziel wants to play in the NFL again. And that’s great. Here’s the hangup: Why would any team sign Manziel?

Rapoport also reported that Manziel “is drawing real interest from teams” at this week’s scouting combine, which is hard to believe. To think teams suddenly believe in Manziel again because he got an agent to work with him again is ignoring … well, everything else. Not the least of which is that on Tuesday – less than 24 hours before the report that teams are interested in him – Manziel was in a Dallas courtroom explaining to a judge why he missed a deadline to update the court on the stipulations of his domestic violence case being dismissed.

There’s also the small issue of Manziel being able to play at an NFL level. Even if Manziel is legitimately turning his life around, has put his partying in the past and is serious about getting back in the NFL, the same football issues he had before the draft remain. He’s still undersized and hasn’t shown an ability to play from the pocket. He didn’t erase those questions in his two Cleveland Browns seasons. And he hasn’t played since December of 2015. It’s hard to believe his skills got sharper during a year off.

But hey, maybe teams are looking past the football issues, the off-field issues, the legal issues (and possible suspension that could come from that), the year off and will want to sign Manziel because … he is working with an agent again, I guess?

Realistically, it is going to take a lot of image rehabilitation before a team begins to consider the possibility, at which point Manziel will have to show he’s physically and mentally ready to play in the NFL. And if all of that happens, Manziel would still have to get a team to believe that he can develop into a quarterback who can consistently play within the structure of an offense, something he rarely did in Cleveland.

But the comeback attempt is apparently on. Manziel has a new agent for it, and he has a lot of work ahead of him.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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