Jameis Winston, the former number one overall selection for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFL Draft back in 2015. Nowadays he finds himself battling it out in a quarterback competition to see who will be named the starter. To make it weirder, he is doing so on a rival team of the one he was drafted by. So, what happened to turn in this former top selection to a backup quarterback?
Winston became a meme around the league incredibly quickly. Everybody knew him as the quarterback that just couldn’t stop throwing interceptions. However, it should be noted that he had to undergo three different head coaching changes throughout his five years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He had Lovie Smith in his rookie season, then Dirk Koetter the next three years, and finally Bruce Arians in his fifth season. Jameis played in 72 overall games with the Buccaneers and somehow found a way to throw 88 interceptions in that span! Although not everything was bad about his overall game which is shocking to say. During that fifth and final year with the Bucs, Winston exploded on the stat sheet. He threw for 30 touchdowns and 5,109 passing yards, leading the league in that category by the way. The downside of those stats was that he threw 30 interceptions in the same span of time.
We haven’t even mentioned the fact that Winston had a small suspension and a clear lack of leadership throughout his time with the team. It also didn’t help his case that the Buccaneers had the opportunity to land Tom Brady and part ways with Winston. A move that they made very quickly and who could blame them. Then he took some time out to test the open market and eventually agreed to terms on a one-year contract with the New Orleans Saints. Drew Brees ended up getting hurt in Winston’s first year as their backup, but he didn’t see the field for more than 15 snaps. Instead, Taysom Hill got every start in his absence.
Then we come into this past offseason, when Winston resigned with the Saints on another one year prove it deal to become the heir apparent to Brees. Throughout the entire offseason, you could truly see the change in his approach to the quarterback position. He was working incredibly hard in his spare time with teammates and ended up getting most of the team to rally behind him as their next leader. He wasn’t just handed the job though, he battled it out with Hill to determine who would start in the season opener. The two went back and forth through the preseason but Winston just looked different. He was delivering the same type of powerful passes we have come to expect but he was finally throwing them to the correct team. In two preseason appearances, he threw just one pick, and that one happened to bounce off the hands of a receiver into the air on what should have been a completed pass. Winston was since named the starting quarterback for their first game against the Green Bay Packers and shouldn’t be anything like the guy we have grown accustomed to seeing with the Buccaneers. Winston seems like he has genuinely changed for the better now and is ready to prove everybody wrong!