2014 NFL Draft: Warren Moon on Manziel, Clowney, Bridgewater & Bortles

Arizona Sports 98.7 FM "Doug & Wolf" in Phoenix hosted a call from Warren Moon, and he shared his thoughts about Texas A&M Heisman QB Johnny Manziel. You can hear the full recording BY CLICKING HERE.

His thoughts on if Manziel will be successful in the NFL:

"I don’t really know. I need to see more of him as far as a quarterback in the pocket. There’s a lot of quarterbacks that have come out of college that are good players but they’re good college quarterbacks and they don’t translate or transition well to the NFL. Johnny Manziel is a very exciting player. He’s a guy that can move around and make things happen with his legs and I see most of his plays made doing it that way."

"But I have to see more about him throwing from the pocket and how well he’ll stand up in the National Football League, because if he runs around as much as he did college he’s going to take a tremendous amount of beating in the NFL and I don’t know how long he’ll last. He’s not the biggest guy in the world."

Any similarities he sees between Russell Wilson and Manziel:

"There are certain characteristics that remind me of Russell Wilson, as far as the escape-ability and that type of thing, but Russell is more than that. This guy is the consummate professional. … You wont have any of the off the field stuff or questions about Russel Wilson that we have about Johnny Manziel and some of the decision making that he made while he was in college. Those things worry you as far as taking a guy to be a leader and the face of the franchise."

"You want a guy that you can count on that will make the right decisions out there in the public and he just hasn’t done some of that over the past couple of years. You can put some of that to maturity, no question about it and he’s probably going to become a more mature player, but those things just worry me."

"Even the things that he’s saying right now here in the draft process, putting a gun basically to the head of the Houston Texans and saying ‘you better draft me first or you’re going to regret that.’ You don’t say that to football teams. That’s just not something you do. You don’t back a team into a corner like that."

On if he would take Johnny Manziel with the first overall pick in the draft:

"I don’t think I would take that type of risk right now just because the number one overall pick has got to be a guy that’s sure fire. He has got to be a guy that is going to come in and maybe start right away for your franchise and I don’t know if he’s ready to do that."

If he were the GM of the Houston Texans, would he take Clowney first overall?

"I don't think so. Not right away, just because of his 40 time. Everybody knew this guy was a freak of nature as far as his athletic ability, but there's a lot more that goes into it to being a great football player. Work ethic has a lot to do with it, effort has a lot to do with it. And those are things you look for when you get to this level, because everybody is a pretty good athlete when you get to this level. When you get a guy that high [first overall draft pick], you want to make sure he is solid in every area."

His thoughts on two other quarterbacks in this upcoming draft:

"I like Teddy Bridgewater and I also like Blake Bortles.  Bortles is a guy that I think is an up-and-comer. He comes out of a good system at Central Florida. I think Teddy Bridgewater because of the system he came out of at Louisville, a very advanced passing system, a west coast passing game, he’s probably the most prepared to play right away. Blake Bortles has a bigger upside."

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I think Moon did a good job on his takes with Bridgewater and Bortles by sticking to how they play the game. He also had a good take on Manziel's playing style, though I think he is just repeating the media thunder about Clowney (work ethic concerns) and Manziel (off-field concerns). I'm no longer worried about either of those topics since there has been a fair amount of reporting to debunk those concerns. It's time to move on to how these guys can play football on an NFL team and what the Texans should do. We still have a couple of months to go, but a lot to digest along the way.

So does Warren Moon's take on these guys change your opinion at all? Weigh in below with your thoughts.