A must watch for every Aggie fan
We’re now only 26 days from the start of the Texas A&M football season, but another must-watch event is now only one day away: The premier of a new Netflix documentary on former Aggie QB Johnny Manziel. “Untold: Johnny Football” traces the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of football star Johnny Manziel via interviews with friends, coaches and Manziel himself.
The Johnny Manziel Documentary is dropping in 21 days pic.twitter.com/ra6WlYV3Kj
— College Football Report (@CFBRep) July 18, 2023
Granted, this is likely to be a cautionary tale as much as anything. Manziel’s on-field success in College Station was only surpassed by his off-field antics, which ultimately cost him any shot at a successful NFL career. There’s no guarantee that the documentary paints A&M in a positive light, but that isn’t it’s goal. It’s not a Texas A&M commercial. There may be things revealed about Manziel’s time here that make you wince. But even if that’s the case, it will be appointment television for just about every Aggie.
Johnny Football is directed by Ryan Duffy, who also directed UNTOLD: The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Exist about Notre Dame linebacker, Manti Te’o. Duffy says his approach to Manziel’s story is another intimate portrait of a football star struggling to process their choices after the fact.
“I hope viewers take away a nuanced and intimate understanding of Johnny and the running tension between his life as Johnny Football and Johnny Manziel,” Duffy said in a statement to Netflix. “This isn’t one of those sports docs on an older player looking back on victory or defeat and reflecting accordingly in a tidy ending. Johnny is still midstream in a lot of this, and I hope this doc offers a compelling and honest look at his present tense processing.”
To this day, despite his last season in maroon and white being a decade ago, Manziel’s name moves the needle in Aggieland perhaps more than any other. Probably why he’s opening up a bar on Northgate. He represents easily the most exciting (or at least the most entertaining) era of Aggie football in recent memory. I know I’ll be tuning in tomorrow.