People expecting vintage “Money Manziel” might want their money back. The former first-round NFL draft pick struggled in his CFL debut with the Montreal Alouettes in a 50-11 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

The Alouettes were dominated in all phases of the game.

The Tiger-Cats traded Manziel 10 days prior and he had four practices with Montreal to prepare. That’s not nearly enough time. I don’t even think he’ll be ready to play next Saturday against Ottawa. But he’s going to start and the results will likely be similar.

It’s now 958 days and counting since he has thrown a touchdown in pro football. This was Manziel’s first start in 950 days.

Manziel never threw more than two interceptions in an NFL game with the Cleveland Browns. He had four in his CFL debut.

Here are my takeaways from Manziel’s inauspicious start.

Bad Start

Manziel threw an interception on the first pass of his CFL career. It was a bad throw into coverage, right into the hands of linebacker Larry Dean. The 28 first-quarter points by Hamilton, tied for the most in an opening quarter and made Manziel’s job nearly impossible. He hadn’t completed a pass yet and it was 28-0. He had already thrown two interceptions at that point. The Ticats were up 38-3 at the half and any offensive balance Montreal had was gone.

Nasty Numbers

Manziel’s line was 11-for-20, 104 yards passing, zero touchdowns and four interceptions. More alarming was that he only had two rushes for four yards. The wide field should have meant he’d be able to make plays happen with his legs.

Manziel’s best stat line was that he had two tackles and he was mercifully pulled after three quarters or else things likely would have been worse. Jeremiah Masoli on the other hand was 17-for-26, 300 yards, 2 TDs and 2 interceptions. There is certainly no more quarterback controversy in Hamilton.

Don’t disrespect the CFL

The notion Manziel was just going to walk into the league and light it up as his agent suggested on his Barstool podcast is ludicrous. It’s disrespectful to Hall-of-Famers like Anthony Calvillo, Henry Burris, Dave Dickenson, Jason Maas, Damon Allen and Doug Flutie not to mention the future Hall-of-Famers playing like Ricky Ray, Bo Levi Mitchell and Mike Reilly, who learned the craft of playing the position over time and were understudies before they became stars.

Mike Sherman, the Alouettes franchise, or anyone else who thought Manziel was going to light it up right away learned the hard way not to disrespect the CFL and try and microwave the sport’s toughest position. The Als didn’t put Manziel in a position to succeed, thus, didn’t put their team in a position to succeed. Manziel was supposed to be the saviour to give the team a lift and hope.

Well, when that failed, how are you going to lift this team?

This week, Mcleod Bethel-Thompson — who has been in the Arena league and in NFL training camps before making his first CFL start at the age of 30 — led an epic comeback over Ottawa to give hope to a CFL East team who only had one win. A day later, Manziel had the opposite experience.

Manziel has a Heisman trophy, but that doesn’t help you on the field and the Alouettes have gone from hopeful, to humbled.

On the job training

You can’t learn the QB position on the fly. Manziel made plays based on athleticism and boredom by Hamilton’s defence when the game was out of reach. He didn’t make plays by executing the offence by making reads and delivering the ball on time from the pocket. He didn’t move defenders with his eyes. He didn’t check out of bad plays into more advantageous plays based on Hamilton’s defence. He didn’t do the things that, at a basic level, are a must to have success as a QB.

Even if he was going to learn by doing and going through his reads, he barely had a chance as he was running for his life because of Montreal’s beleaguered offensive line.

This isn’t a Manziel issue; it’s a Montreal issue. Manziel took ownership for the loss in his post-game presser with the media, but it wasn’t his fault.

The Alouettes are now 1-6. They have won one game in the last 17.

They are last in the league in almost every major offensive category. They have a QB depth chart full of players who have been released from other teams.

It’s not all Johnny Football’s fault. This is a bad team with an inexperienced CFL coach. This isn’t how you develop a QB. This is why they’ve had 14 QBs since the aforementioned

Calvillo, who retired five years ago. They have had an adamant amount of time to groom someone to replace him.

To make matter worse, they gave up their sacks leader in Jamaal Westerman and their leading receiver in Chris Williams to get Manziel and the Alouettes defence gave up over 300 yards in the first half.

Things don’t get easier as their next game is at the East-leading Ottawa Redblacks, who are 4-3.

Next week’s Barstool podcast should be interesting.