Johnny Manziel Talked Infamous Vegas Trip, Googling to Find 'Very, Very Sketchy' Wig Shop Off the Strip

Johnny Manziel appeared on the ThomaHawk podcast with former Browns teammates Joe Thomas and Andrew Hawkins. And yes, they talked about his infamous final football week with the Cleveland Browns, that involved a concussion and then Manziel disappearing on Sunday morning before the final game, with reports then emerging that he was in las vegas and wearing a disguise.

Manziel first revealed (starting at about 30 minutes into the podcast) that he did have a concussion that occurred some time in the 3rd quarter of the week 16 game against Kansas City. He didn’t tell the coaching staff. But then, as he discusses, he had some friends come up from Texas, they partied, he was kind of over the season (one in which the Browns went 2-14). So by the time he showed up at the facility on Tuesday morning, after a night out with friends, he decided “nope,” and reported the concussion.

Fast forward to that Saturday. Manziel hatched what he described as a “reckless, reckless plan” to fly out to Vegas immediately after the team walkthrough, spend a few hours in Vegas, and then catch a return flight back that night, so that he would be at the facility in time to check in the following morning.

Initially, he was in Vegas without any disguise. He flew United commercial in coach, wearing just a hat. He got lured in by playing some craps, and a reporter recognized him, and he produced his real ID at the table which drew attention. By this time–as can often happen–the allure of Vegas altered plans. Manziel missed his return flight and that’s when much of the things that we posted a few years ago happened, as he then went into CYA mode to stay and party.

He posted a picture of himself and his dog to Instagram and tagged the location as Avon, Ohio. (“You thought that would cover your tracks?” Thomas asked). Manziel then, well, let’s let him describe it:

“So then I’m like, I’m not gonna be able to just go in with a hat, so I’m like ‘let’s go get a wig.’ As funny as this is, I’m still pretty embarrassed by it, it’s still a reckless decision, but like we said, ‘let it die’ so we are gonna kill it tonight.

I’m like let’s go to this wig shop. So I Google type in nearest wig shop, go somewhere off the Strip, very, very sketchy and just walk into this place and this little lady comes up ‘what you want on your hair, honey?’

‘I need something that makes me not look like this. Do you have a mustache, do you have a wig, do you have anything?’ She came back with this wig, and I put it on in 2 seconds. I shaved all my facial hair but my mustache. So I kinda had a little mustache going. The only mustaches they had were the kind that come down about 6-7 inches. So I didn’t think that was really going to help my case.”

Manziel also provided a photo from his phone of his disguise that night. Enjoy.

Manziel then says that he was out until about 3 or 4 am in Vegas, and realizing that it was almost 7 am on the East Coast and his phone would start blowing up soon, he shut it off and crashed. He didn’t wake up until the afternoon, when all hell had broken loose.