Former Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel made around $8 million in his NFL career, but he thinks that would have been dwarfed by what he could have made in college if he had played when players were allowed to make money off their names, images and likenesses.
Manziel, who became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy in 2012 at Texas A&M, said in an [interview with Greg McElroy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aodEOt8xSU) that the NIL money for a high-profile player like him would have been substantially more than he made as the 22nd overall pick of the Browns in 2014.
“I would’ve taken a pay cut had I gone to the NFL,” Manziel said.
Manziel entered the NFL draft with two years of NCAA eligibility remaining, and he says there’s no way he would have done that if he’d been allowed to make money off his name.
“I think no matter what, being in the NIL era, if that would have been the equivalent of 2013, I would have stayed no matter what,” Manziel said. “Just because a couple million bucks in College Station goes a really, really long way. And, you go to the NFL, you’re a first round pick you sign for $10 million or whatever it is, that’s the two years that I had remaining at Texas A&M, to be able to make through NIL. So I think, for me, when I think back about it now, I definitely, if there would have been any real money involved, I definitely would have stayed no matter what.”
Manziel was forced to sit out the first half of one game at Texas A&M after an NCAA investigation into whether he had taken money to sign autographs. But the kind of money players were getting investigated for a decade ago was chump change compared to what starting quarterbacks at major football schools are getting paid legally now.
“You can be a four-year starter in the NIL world and set yourself up really, really nice whether you go to the next level or not,” Manziel said.
NIL has made football a different world, both because college players are getting rich, and because it’s viable financially for college players to stay in college if they’re not going to be a top pick in the NFL.