While Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel is seeking treatment for undisclosed personal issues, it is not known if that places him in the NFL’s substance-abuse program.
“The medical professionals in charge of the program make those decisions and it is confidential,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told PFT’s Mike Florio on Monday when asked if Manziel was in the substance-abuse program.
According to the NFL’s substance-abuse policy as agreed to by the league and the NFLPA, the NFL can place a player in the program due to “behavior . . . which, in the judgment of the Medical Director, exhibits physical, behavioral, or psychological signs or symptoms of misuse of Substances of Abuse.”
Such behavior, according to the policy, is “including but not limited to an arrest or conduct related to an alleged misuse of Substances of Abuse occurring up to two (2) football seasons prior to the Player’s applicable scouting combine.”
Also, players are able to place themselves into the substance-abuse program, per NFL rules.
According to ESPN The Magazine, Manziel was made to take alcohol counseling by his parents and Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin after the quarterback was arrested in an altercation in June 2012. Manziel was a first-round pick of the Browns in May 2014.
The league’s substance-abuse policy is governed by some confidentiality rules — and some strict ones, too, especially regarding information that has not been properly cleared to be released. In short, all we know is that if the NFL wants to place a player in the program, it has the ability to to do so.
