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For Winston and Mariota, 2019 Will Be a Make-or-Break Season

The top two picks of the 2015 draft will be playing for their franchise-QB status this fall, with their futures very much up in the air. The coaches working with the two this offseason, in Tampa and Tennessee, say signs are positive.

By Albert Breer SI.com
June 24, 2019

Clyde Christensen’s view on where Jameis Winston is, as a pro, is in part colored by some research he did before getting his hands on his new quarterback in April.

Knowing he had to instill confidence in the 25-year-old former first-rounder, and develop a partnership with him, the Buccaneers’ new quarterbacks coach dived into the numbers on comparable players at the position—highly drafted and thrust into a starting job right away. Christensen found that, while acknowledging Winston had work to do, his issues were hardly outliers among his peers.

One example came with the perceived (and probably real) primary problem in Winston’s game: He threw 58 interceptions over his first four years. Just like Andrew Luck threw 55, Cam Newton threw 54, and Matthew Stafford threw 54 (despite missing 19 games due to injury).

Heck, Peyton Manning—Peyton Manning—threw 81.

“Your first four years, you throw a bunch of interceptions,” Christensen said over his cell just after the Bucs broke for summer last week. “Almost all of them did. [Matt] Ryan had less, but they ran the ball in Atlanta, he went to a little bit better football team. But you look at all the numbers, [Winston] had thrown for fourteen-thousand yards. I just hadn’t seen [the Bucs] on TV and they hadn’t won.

“So I wasn’t aware of it, but his numbers were solid for a guy who missed a couple of games with injury, a couple of games with suspension. His numbers were right up in there with all the others, what we would assess as really good players.”

OK, now here’s the flip side.

If we’re judging the Bucs by their actions, they’re seeing the flaws too. The GM who drafted Winston, Jason Licht, is still there, and Winston hasn’t gotten the second contract that serves as affirmation of a QB’s standing as his franchise’s face. They hired Bruce Arians—whose memoirs were entitled The Quarterback Whisperer—as head coach. Arians hired quarterback gurus Christensen and Byron Leftwich.

More simply put, Tampa emerged from four years with Winston lacking a clear answer whether he’s the right quarterback for the franchise, and the team reconfigured its football operation this year to get that answer. Christensen has no problem conceding the second part of this complicated equation.

“You’re going into your fifth year, you’re not the rookie anymore,” he said. “It’s time. Stuff really should show up now. That fourth and fifth year, the sixth year, is when it should click. Now, you have to put a supporting cast around him, and give him a chance too. That’s a big part of this thing. But you’re a veteran guy now. Dumb interceptions are not OK, bad judgment’s not OK, that stuff is what you’ve been working on for four years, getting the experience.”

What’s really fascinating about this summer subplot in the NFL? The team that drafted a quarterback right after Tampa took Winston in 2015 is going through the exact same thing.

But we’re starting with a pretty interesting storyline that hasn’t been mined much this offseason, maybe because the two main figures in it play in smaller markets where the scrutiny isn’t quite as intense.

Winston and Marcus Mariota came into the league in 2015 as a strong 1-2 atop the NFL draft. Neither was seen as a reach, both had been in the spotlight in major college football for well over a year, and each brought to the table outsized college production (Winston won a national title in 2013, Mariota made it to the title game in 2014) and high-ceiling potential.

Four years later, the two go into the 2019 season in a situation that’s unprecedented for first-round quarterbacks under the 2011 CBA: playing out a fifth-year option. Of the 12 QBs to go in the first round from 2011 to ’14, four (Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Ryan Tannehill, Blake Bortles) were extended before Year 5. The other eight had their options declined, and were off the teams that drafted them by then.

We can argue the reasons why we’re here with Mariota and Winston. One could be the financial explosion at the top of the quarterback market (the average-per-year figure jumped 25 percent from spring 2018 to spring 2019). Another might be the buyer-beware lesson that Bortles provided—the Jags extended him rather than just exercising his option, and are carrying $15.5 million in dead money this year to show for it; Bortles was released in March and is now backing up Jared Goff on the Rams.

And then, of course, there’s the play of Winston and Marioa themselves. Which is what we’re going to get to right now.

THE STATE OF JAMEIS WINSTON

Lest you think Christensen’s homework stopped at Pro Football Reference’s URL, Winston’s new position coach—who worked with Manning, then Luck from 2012-15 in Indianapolis—actually went through all Winston’s throws as a pro, and a bunch of his tape from Florida State. Then he got on the phone and called everyone he could, “from the kitchen to the equipment room,” to find out just who his new student was.

What came back was surprising, especially given how Winston’s rep preceded him.

“The thing that stuck out to me is everyone said exactly the same thing—great worker, humble, has a humility about him that makes him attractive, has a pleasant disposition, and wants to win desperately,” Christensen said. “I was shocked that everyone said the same thing. I think that was probably one of the things. And as best I could I investigated all the incidents, or alleged incidents or whatever they are, and tried to figure those things out.”

Christensen acknowledged that some of the problems were very real, while noting that the incident that led to Winston’s three-game suspension last year—an Uber driver in Arizona accused him of groping her in March 2016—occurred three years ago. (Winston was not charged; he reportedly settled a lawsuit with the driver last November.)

“Everybody had a perception that this kid had been really struggling off the field for the last three years, and that wasn’t the case,” Christensen said. “The case was generally he’d been doing everything right for two-and-a-half years, and that suspension came as a delayed punishment that gave you a perception that wasn’t correct.”

Helping Winston with everything else will be simpler for Christensen. Part of the reason is that Winston has all the tools. Working around Manning and Luck, both sons of quarterbacks who grew into prodigies, has informed Christensen’s teaching in that regard, and Winston’s getting the benefit of it now.

On a macro level, it’s meant learning to turn hard work into smarter work, and to set up his off-field schedule in a way that’s conducive to what he’s trying to accomplish on it.

“You want to be a pro with a lot of things,” Christensen said. “You want to be a pro at resting—you have to rest well, you have to schedule well. You have to pick when you do appearances well. You have know when you’re going to fly to the West Coast and when you’re not. You have to pick your spots and decide when you’re going to be anchored into Tampa and just rest on those off days.

“He’s got so many things going on. And I always admired Peyton and Andrew, that they were just extremely disciplined with that. Once you set a schedule, they just stayed with it.”

In other words, when the schedule says it’s a rest day, don’t play soccer under the Florida sun on a turf field or fly somewhere for an appearance. When you’re on vacation, don’t do a three-and-a-half-hour workout. When camp is approaching, stay near Tampa to acclimate. “It’s comprehensive,” said Christensen. “It’s not just taking a five-step drop and throwing a football.”

And come August, cutting down on interceptions will, indeed, be a focus—“that’s a fact, we have to eliminate them.” Breaking down the tape, Christensen was able to categorize Winston’s mistakes. Most involved his aggressive nature. Some were a result of being down a couple scores late. Others were forced balls downfield. And others still came down to judgment.

“Andrew Luck was the same thing. It’s hard—those guys, they just don’t give up on a play,” Christensen said. “It’s hard for [Winston] to give up on a play, and that’s the hardest thing to teach.

“Now here’s what I’ll tell you—Brady and Payton are excellent. A, they have a great grasp of how long they have to get a ball out. B, they know they’re probably not running for 15 yards on a third-and-15.

“[Like Jameis], Andrew kind of thinks it’s a no-play’s-ever-dead type of deal. So that’s a hard teach and it’s just over time, doing it over and over and over.”

A fourth category is one where Christensen and Winston have already done a lot of work —with wayward throws that simply wind up getting picked off. As the coach sees it, a lot of inaccuracy is caused by bad or sloppy technique, and so the Bucs really drilled down on the fundamentals over the spring.

“We emphasized with him that a completion isn’t just a completion, there’s different levels,” Christensen said. “If I throw a ball two yards behind the guy and he makes a catch, you gain 10 yards. But if I’d thrown it out in front of him, the play gains 16 yards. It’s just trying to establish the correct mentality on accuracy, timing and anticipation. We worked really hard with him on just getting ourselves aligned correctly.”

Now, you want the good news here? Christensen still sees everything that made Winston the first pick in the draft four years ago. And at the same time, he remembers arriving in Tampa a generation ago with Tony Dungy, and how Trent Dilfer’s career went sideways because so many things went wrong around him.

That’s given Christensen perspective on what it’ll take to get the most out of Winston—and how it’s the new staff’s job to create the right environment for their quarterback, which starts with a system they think fits him to a T.

“Bruce Arians is going to throw the ball upfield, you’re going to get hit after you throw the ball some, you’re going to have to be big enough to take a hit,” Christensen said. “Yeah, so I do think [Winston] is perfect for his system. This guy’s going to sit in the pocket, no one would accuse him of being afraid, and you better have an ability to hold it a half a count and let it rip and be aggressive with the thing. It is kind of a perfect system for him.”

Time will tell if results show up accordingly.

Now, what’s super interesting about all this to me is how it might affect next spring in the NFL. It’s two teams that might or might not be looking for a quarterback in 2020, at a time when the position is as healthy as it’s been in decades. As such, it could affect how high guys like Oregon’s Justin Herbert or Alabama’s Tua Tagovialoa are drafted. It could impact where someone like Eli Manning plays in 2020.

And on another level, will Winston’s or Mariota’s ultimate fate serve as a test case for teams, since both guys had issues coming out of college that have impacted their careers as pros? Or maybe the way the Bucs and Titans have managed these guys affects the way teams approach the final years of a first-round quarterback’s rookie contract?

All of that is on the table. We should have some answers by Christmas. And quite honestly, I don’t have a great handle on which way either of these quarterbacks goes—which should make it all the more fun to watch.

For the Mariota discussion....
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/24/jameis-winston-marcus-mariota-2019-season-contract-year