With training camp set to kickoff on Thursday morning at 8:45 a.m., veteran’s reported to One Buc on Wednesday. By noon, the Bucs public relations department made three players available at the podium in the studio to talk about the upcoming season. Winston wasn’t one of those players, but that didn’t keep the topic of the quarterback’s three-game suspension from being a major point of discussion.

Not surprisingly, there was unwavering support for Winston from guard Ali Marpet, wide receiver Mike Evans and linebacker Lavonte David.

“We’ve talked and his mindset is, how can he be the best teammate moving forward, and I think he’s doing that,” Marpet said. “We all support him. We’re one team, obviously we’ve been together for a little while now. He’s taking the right approach since the suspension.”

Bucs Ali Marpet – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Marpet said he was actually caught off guard when the suspension came down.

“It’s tough. I just didn’t know much about it, I guess,” Marpet said. “So when I found out that there was a three game suspension, obviously there was something I didn’t know. So yeah, I was surprised.”

Evans seemed even less bothered by the fact the team will face the Saints, Eagles and Steelers without their top quarterback.

“Just like last year when we had Fitz in, it’s the same thing,” Evans said. “We do look at the schedule and see the strength of it, but this is the NFL. This is what we signed up for and this is what we’ve got to do. We’ve got to battle. We’ve got a tough three weeks and I’m looking forward to it. I love the competition. Monday night against Pittsburgh, at New Orleans, the Super Bowl champs… you can’t ask for anything better than that.”

Evans didn’t want to get too deep into the specifics of the Winston situation.

“I don’t know the whole situation and nobody does except the people that were there, so I don’t want to speak to much on that, but I’m just happy that he’s taking it well and I’m looking forward to having him back early in the season.”

David, like Evans, didn’t come across as overly worried but said he still believes in Winston moving forward.

“We just know it was a silly mistake back in the day. Just a silly mistake. He knows it, we all know it but we’ve got his back, like I said,” David said. “He knows what he’s done and he’s going to learn from it because from when it happened to now he’s matured a lot. You guys know Jameis. Jameis is a guy who’s all about his business. Come to work, do what’s right, he’s going to have your back and we’re going to try and do our best to have his back. That’s why we just keep our spirits up and hold him down until he’s back.”

Lavonte later clarified his declaration of it being a “silly mistake” instead calling it a “bad decision.”

Bucs QBs Jameis Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

“Yeah, I think so. It was just a bad judgement call by him because I know him personally from what I’ve seen, from what we talk about, things like that,” David said. “He’s just a guy who’s just trying to become the best man he can be. He’s engaged to his fiancé, he just had a newborn son, so he’s just trying to be the best role model for his son. I know it happened a long time ago and it was just a bad decision made by him but I’m positive, I’m 100% sure that he’s learned from it in a major way.”

Marpet summed up what we expect most, if not all of his teammates would say.

“We support him fully,” Marpet said. “Again, as corny as it is, we are one family. I mean, when one of us is down we have each other’s back. We definitely have his back and when he can play he has our back.”