Doyel: Would you risk your franchise on Jameis Winston?With the first pick of the 2015 NFL Draft, the Tampa Bay Bucs will take him. In my dreams, that's how NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announces it Thursday night. He doesn't say the player's name. Just "him."You know his name. You know his background. You know what he's done, what he's been accused of doing, what he's being sued over in civil court. You know FSU quarterback Jameis Winston is the biggest character risk in the 2015 NFL Draft class, not just by a single red flag but a field of them, a walking pasture of poppies.It's like the Bucs don't know.The Bucs being the Bucs, they're apparently going to draft Winston — him — No. 1 overall Thursday night, and while it makes no sense on so many levels, it makes sense on this one: It's the Bucs. They're tying their reputation and their foreseeable future to Jameis Winston, or rather, they're tying Winston to their reputation and future, perching him on their chest like a Flavor Flav clock, ridiculous and laughable. But again, it's the Bucs. They're already ridiculous and laughable after two years under knucklehead coach Greg Schiano, whose 2012-13 tenure was punctuated, literally and symbolically, by a staph infection that spread around the locker room.INDIANAPOLIS STARChad: Who's better, Mariota or Winston? No contestNow the Bucs will introduce to the locker room Jameis Winston, and this story here is not a prediction that he will fail. Not a fan of the guy, you can see that, but this is not a prediction that Winston will screw up in his personal life, follow his litany of off-field Florida State nonsense with more nonsense in Tampa. Has Jameis Winston learned from his ridiculous past? I do not know.But I know this: He's the biggest risk in the draft. Other players have issues, of course. Missouri defensive end Shane Ray has an injured foot and a recent citation for marijuana. Nebraska defensive end Randy Gregory of Hamilton Southeastern failed not just a marijuana test but an IQ test by testing positive in February at the NFL Draft Combine in Indianapolis, where he knew he would be tested for marijuana. That makes teams wonder whether he will have difficulty staying clean — and unsuspended. Both players are plummeting, Gregory perhaps out of the top 10 and Ray possibly out of the first round.Ray and Gregory are risks, but not like Winston. The position he plays changes the conversation entirely, because as an early first-round draft pick who plays quarterback he's not just an important part of the franchise — he's the face of the franchise. And his background is so checkered, his maturity level or impulse control or some combination of the two so clearly lacking at Florida State, that the Bucs don't know if he can stay out of trouble in the NFL. They can't know. None of us can, which is why my point here is not: Jameis Winston will make the Bucs sorry they drafted him.Point is: The Bucs can't possibly know if he'll make them sorry they drafted him. Yet they're about to, with the No. 1 overall pick. And look, if they don't take him, the Titans will with the next pick. And all of what I'm saying about the Bucs would go for the Titans — how can they draft Jameis Winston No. 2? Pick that high, first or second overall, and your franchise can't afford to get it wrong. You're not spackling a hole, as the Colts and Packers will do near the end of the first round; you're setting a foundation.A foundation of Jameis Winston?INDIANAPOLIS STARTony Dungy wouldn't draft Jameis WinstonI couldn't do it. You own or run or coach a $1 billion franchise. You make not just your first draft pick, but the face of your franchise, a player who has been recently accused — and is being sued in civil court by the accuser — of rape. Innocent until proven guilty matters, and Winston deserves the benefit of the doubt, but what came next was a series of absurd missteps. The crab legs he either stole from Publix or was given against NCAA rules. Prior allegations that he and three teammates engaged in a battle involving pellet and BB guns, doing $4,000 in damage to an apartment complex. Allegations he stole soda from Burger King.The fact that he jumped onto a table on campus, this Heisman-winning quarterback of the nation's No. 1 football team who was famously accused of sexual assault, and yelled a sexual vulgarity about women.Separately, these missteps aren't too problematic. But as a whole? Most of those allegations coming after his nationally debated status as a rape suspect? That's a problem. A guy with every reason to show he's not what some people say he is, not a bad guy, not a character risk in the slightest, walked off with crab-legs and jumped on a table on campus and yelled a vulgar internet catchphrase — then was reportedly caught by FSU officials lying about it, which CNN reported explains why his initial one-half suspension was expanded to a full game.Makes you wonder.There's a lot here with Winston, including a racial component irresponsibly plugged into the equation last week by a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report that allowed an anonymous NFL executive to publicly compare Winston to 2007 No. 1 overall pick JaMarcus Russell, a notorious NFL bust who is similar to Winston only in size and skin color.There's also the defense of Winston by his football coach at FSU, Jimbo Fisher, who enabled Winston for so long and then made such hyperbolic statements in his defense that Fisher cannot be taken seriously. "Jameis, in football intellect, intelligence level, is as smart as anybody I've ever been around," said Fisher, who has been around Rhodes Scholar-winning former FSU safety Myron Rolle.It's a complicated issue, the drafting of Jameis Winston. He's a risk in any round. The higher you go, the bigger the risk. All the way to the top of the draft? First overall?Him?What can you say, other than another word that says it all.Bucs. http://www.indystar.com/story/sports/columnists/gregg-doyel/2015/04/29/doyel-risk-franchise-jameis-winston/26572295/
