Haven't read it yet as it was just posted... http://mmqb.si.com/2015/02/23/tampa-bay-buccaneers-jameis-winston-peter-king-nfl-combine-draft The Bucs Start HereJameis Winston, No. 1 overall? Tampa Bay's investigation into what will become the most scrutinized pick in draft history has only begun. ByPeter KingINDIANAPOLIS — The Most Scrutinized Draft Pick of All Time was on the phone Sunday, a day after the poking and prodding of the NFL combine here, and I asked The Most Scrutinized Draft Pick of All Time if he was ready for the private detectives from multiple teams and intrusive questions and the 30 hours of one-on-one time with one team alone (Tampa Bay GM Jason Licht’s estimate) that he faces in the next 66 days, between now and the first round of the NFL draft.“I love it,” Jameis Winston said. “I welcome it. They’re really going to find out the type of person I am. Character is not about what you do when you’re around people. Character is what you show when no one is looking. I believe if they do a hard, hard investigation into Jameis the person, they will find out that I’m a good guy.”They’d better, or they won’t pick him. Not in this environment.—In the hotel Starbucks lines in the morning, in the indoor walkways that connect downtown to Lucas Oil Stadium, in St. Elmo’s at dinner, in the postgaming near midnight in the bars that coaches and scouts and agents packed all weekend, everyone looked for clues about what Tampa Bay will do with the first overall pick April 30. The answer came back thusly from I’d say about 80 percent of the NFL cognoscenti who had an opinion or some insight on the subject: Tampa’s taking Jameis.It’s too early to be so definitive, of course. And I don’t believe the Bucs have a final answer, because they have not come close to finishing their due diligence on Winston, and they intend to spend 30 hours of alone time with both Winston and Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota before the draft. But a Saturday breakfast with the formerly invisible Licht, the most influential football man in the league for the next two months, didn’t do anything to disabuse the idea.Lovie Smith says the Buccaneers are ‘OK' with Jameis Winston’s character issues, but Greg Bedard doesn’t believe him. Besides, Marcus Mariota could be a better fit for Tampa Bay’s offensive plans. The biggest question, obviously, in the decision whether to take Mariota or the more NFL-ready Winston is whether all the off-field incidents—Winston was investigated for, but never charged with, sexual assault, and was disciplined for shoplifting crab legs and shouting an obscenity in the Florida State student union—in an image-manic NFL these days will steer the Bucs away from Winston. But last week coach Lovie Smith spoke positively of Winston. And at one point Saturday morning, Licht mused about the two possibilities of Winston the person. “Bad guy or immaturity?” Licht said. “I’m leaning toward the latter.”You can deal with some immaturity. But seven months of off-field mayhem and bitter consequences for the NFL have put an even bigger spotlight on the risks of taking players with pockmarked résumés. That’s why what Licht said there is significant. The preliminary workups on Winston must not have found any sort of further smoking gun. (I stress preliminary.) Tampa Bay has to be doubly certain of the character of the number one overall pick, as one opposing NFC executive said Saturday. As this exec said, if the Bucs err on Winston, for example, and he has a major problem off the field in the next few years, the screams will be loud and justified. How could you take a guy with so many issues as your franchise centerpiece—when you know the storms the NFL has endured for so long with player behavior? Really, this pick is a perfect storm in so many ways. The Bucs are entering their 40th season as an NFL team in 2015, and as Licht said, “This is the most important pick, potentially, in the history or the franchise.” Just how bad has it been at quarterback for the Bucs? In their 39 seasons, they’ve never had a quarterback last longer than five seasons as the team’s leading passer. Doug Williams, Vinny Testaverde and Trent Dilfer all lasted five years as the starter. Amazing to think the Bucs have never had a true, long-term franchise quarterback in four decades.“I feel more privilege than pressure,” Licht said. He and coach Lovie Smith, in concert, will make the choice of Winston, Mariota, or a trade—and a trade seems highly unlikely because Licht and his scouting staff have seen enough of the two quarterbacks to know at least one of them has the right stuff to be a franchise guy.Licht said he has scouted Mariota four times over the past two seasons. Ditto Winston. He said he has seen every college game of each player on tape now. I asked Licht if he could pick out a play from both players that he felt typifies them as players. He said he couldn’t think of just one for Mariota, because there were many that highlighted his athleticism and passing ability. But then he pulled out his smart phone and said, “If I see a good play I want to keep, I put it on my phone,” he said. “Look at this one from Jameis. I was actually at this game.” With that he touched the screen a few times and called up a play from the 2013 Syracuse-Florida State game, and held the phone out for me to see.“Just watch Jameis here, not the running back,” Licht said. (Here’s a shaky YouTube clip of the same play.)With FSU at its 26-yard line, Winston handed the ball to running back Levonte Whitfield, and as Whitfield looked for a hole inside, Winston circled back out of the play. Then Whitfield broke through the line to the right, and cut back left, running against the grain, out-running the competition. But there was one cornerback left to beat, Syracuse’s Julian Whigham.I’m just watching Winston. When he sees Whitfield break through the line, Winston’s at about the 20-yard line, and he starts sprinting as fast as he can up the field. You can see that Winston, once he gets about 30 yards into the sprint, is aiming solely for Whigham. At about the Syracuse 37, Whigham is in position to tackle Whitfield, but here comes Winston, 43 yards into a dead sprint, lunging at Whigham and blocking him out of the play. An amazing effort play by Winston.“You’d think I’d show you a pass play, right?’’ said Licht. “That was a competitive play—it shows you so much about the player.“I’d be lying if I said I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the off-field stuff,” Licht says. “This decision is going to affect so many people and their families. We’ve got to get it right.”“I’ve been lucky in this league in my 20 years. I’ve seen some great ones. I was in Miami starting out when Dan Marino was there. I worked for New England and watched Tom Brady grow. And I’ve been around Donovan McNabb and Kurt Warner. I’ve seen the common threads. And now in these two quarterbacks, I see an amazing amount in common. They both had great success in college. Both won a Heisman. Both winners. Both tape junkies. Both coaches’ dreams. Both mentally can handle the pressure of what they’re about to face.“But I’d be lying if I said I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the off-field stuff. It’s always in the back of your mind. We’re people too. We have wives and daughters and bosses to answer to. And at the end of the day we will do the kind of due diligence the likes of which I don’t believe the Bucs will have ever done. This decision is going to affect so many people and their families. We’ve got to get it right.”—A year ago, Johnny Manziel came to the combine and was quite well-rehearsed. He had off-field issues—nightlife stuff mostly, and being sent home ignominiously from the Manning Passing Academy. Manziel had all the answers down pat, explaining how he was a good person and had reasons (maturity ones) for his mess-ups.Winston didn’t do much of the mea culpa in front of the press in Indianapolis, and he concentrated mostly on football stuff in his 15-minute meetings with multiple teams in the evenings. “He killed it with us,” said one club executive of a quarterback-needy team who sat in on his team’s meeting with Winston. “You don’t have much time with him, and he was able to dissect a few plays pretty precisely. You heard a lot about his football IQ going in, and he didn’t disappoint.”He didn’t try to hide his confidence. As he told the press on Friday: “This is no competition between just me and Mariota, because one thing about me, I plan on winning the Super Bowl next year so it’s going to be me versus Peyton Manning and Jameis versus Tom Brady. I want to be viewed like that.” In other words: Don’t compare me to the college guy. Compare me to the best of the best.On Sunday, he clarified what he meant. “I’m not trying to compare myself to college competition, to another guy I’m against in the draft,” Winston said. “Marcus is a great guy, a great quarterback. He has so many skills. But I am trying to be a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. I’m trying to be a Hall of Famer one day. This isn’t about some competition on draft day. It’s about being the face of a franchise and getting a team to play in the Super Bowl, soon.”The combine, Winston said, was a chance to tell teams about him as a player and a person. “I think I did good at everything,” he said. “The interviews were the part that I really loved. I had a chance to sit down with the teams. I had a chance to be a man about what I did at school. I was able to tell them, ‘Look, that was just a mistake. That was me being stupid.’ But you can’t really gain someone’s trust on your first time meeting them. It’s going to be a process. I believe they understood. They listened. I wanted to go in and tell my story. You know, perception is reality. Don’t judge me on this. Let me show you by my actions.”Winston’s side of the sexual-assault allegation will be that it was investigated three times, the third time by a Florida state Supreme Court justice, and never was he found culpable. That’s on the public record. Now it’ll be up to investigators hired by teams, such as Tampa Bay, to see if there’s anything else, with this story or any others, that would dissuade them from taking him. There could be one other sticky thing Winston will have to address with teams. He also was Florida State’s baseball closer, and his two agents, Greg Genske and Kenny Felder, represent mostly baseball players. Genske repped Manny Ramirez for five years. While Winston said often over the weekend he is now a full-time football player, he did equivocate when we spoke Sunday. “Right now I am focusing on football,” Winston said. “This is the first offseason I’ve ever had where I can focus totally on football. I am loving this, being a quarterback every day … Anything that keeps me busy helps me. I love baseball. I love football. Playing both was the best of both worlds.”Asked if he would ever want to play both sports as a pro, he said: “I can’t speak on that. It always has been my dream, but I’m just playing football right now.”I see a couple of problems that would preclude this. Tampa Bay is not taking Winston number one if he says, “I’d like to play baseball for three months every year.” Or one month, because of the training time it would take away from football. Deion Sanders did it because he was a cornerback, not a quarterback. It’s just too hard to stay on top of being an NFL quarterback to think he could double-dip. Secondly: What team would go down the baseball road—even a team in need of a 95-mph-throwing closer—if the player had to leave the team every year just as the pennant races were heating up?“I believe if they do a hard investigation into Jameis the person,” Winston says, “they will find out that I’m a good guy.”His comments are interesting, and beg for more questioning by NFL suitors. If I thought there was much of a chance of it being a roadblock, or even a factor, in the way of Winston being picked number one, I’d have led the column with it. But I don’t see it. Not saying it’s impossible, but I am saying it’s highly unlikely he could, or would, try to play both at the same time.The next two months will be filled with questions for Winston. You can tell he wants to get picked number one overall by the Bucs. He knows for that to happen, the scrutiny is going to be intense, and he can’t have any skeletons in his closet. The pressure is just beginning.“This is what I live for,” Winston said. “As a quarterback, the position is the most criticized and scrutinized position in all sports. I accept that role. I am ready to show you what I’m capable of, ready to gain that trust a quarterback has to have from his team.”They’ve left the starting gate, and Winston’s got a couple of lengths on Mariota. Winston got used to playing from behind last year at Florida State. Now he’s got to handle prosperity—and be sure the private eyes don’t find anything.
