All-Twenty Tuesday: Bucs QB Jameis Winston

When it comes to getting those potential wins down the stretch of the season, no player needs them more than quarterback Jameis Winston. If this team is going to keep Winston around for 2020 and perhaps even beyond, they need to know he can win them games as their signal caller. Over the years Winston has put up some crazy stats with some eye-popping plays. But he’s also been a turnover machine who has held this team back, too.

Winston currently leads the NFL in interceptions with 23. The next closest is Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield with 16. That’s not good any way you slice it. But like everything in this game, even turnovers have context than needs to be examined.

The play above is Winston’s first interception of the game against Indianapolis. This play was on his first pass of the game. The Bucs like to keep things simple to start Winston off. Fans have often noted that Winston is better as a momentum player and easy throws early on could be a key to him getting in rhythm sooner and playing better throughout the game.

The play above was supposed to be one of those simple, easy plays. It was a throw over the middle (the area of the field Winston has been most comfortable over the years) to his most reliable target in wide receiver Mike Evans. Winston was trying to fit the pass over the top of the linebackers, something he has done many times over his career. But what he didn’t take into account was the player he was trying to throw over.

Colts star linebacker Darius Leonard dropped back smoothly, covered a lot of ground, read Winston’s eyes and was able to fully extend his body to get that interception. Hell of a play on what was supposed to be an easy completion.

The play above was Winston’s second interception of the game, once again to Leonard.

As if the first play wasn’t worthy of a hat tip to Leonard’s playmaking ability, this second interception was simply amazing.

Leonard fully engaged with the center in the play above. This did two things. For one, it occupied one of the Bucs offensive linemen (center Ryan Jensen) in decoy fashion as the delayed blitz from the safety was coming in through the A gap. And on top of that, it allowed Leonard to “disappear” from Winston’s gaze of the coverage at the snap. As the blitz was coming in and Winston knew he had to get rid of it, he tried to go over the middle where Leonard had smoothly dropped back with his hands up and the ball flew right in his grasp.

I’m not out here saying that those interception “shouldn’t count”, but those guys on the other side of the ball get paid, too, and Leonard is one hell of a coverage linebacker. A turnover, yes, but one many, if not most, quarterbacks in the NFL would have fallen victim to because of how well Leonard played those two downs.

I wanted to get the bad out of the way because there was much more good than bad from the Bucs offense on Sunday against the Colts.

The play above is one of two where I’m going to highlight Winston doing an excellent job of keeping the play alive and then making a good decision with it. We’ve seen Winston be a fighter behind the line of scrimmage before, but in the past, the longer he’s been back there holding on to the ball the more fans are just begging him to throw it away, knowing Winston has a tendency to make rash decisions.

In the play above, we saw the Bucs run a shallow crossing concept (!!!!!!). Crossers can make coverage difficult for a defense whether it’s man or zone. In the play above, the Colts were playing man coverage against the shallow routes, and did so well. But as Winston rolled to the sideline, he remained patient with his head up. In doing so, he was able to wait for the defender to break away from his coverage and made an easy touch throw into space.

I would hope that if that defender did not break on the route and wide receiver Breshad Perriman would have remained covered that Winston’s only other option would have been to throw it away. If so, then you have a player whose escapability and “never say die” attitude can be viewed as a positive.

The second play was a little more “WHAT ARE YOU DOING” than the first, but it wasn’t so far out there that it wasn’t logical.

As he avoided pressure in the pocket and was ultimately forced to move outside of the tackle box, Winston kept his eyes downfield once again. The worrisome part of this play was the way Winston had to turn his body in order too fire this ball into the chest of his receiver accurately, but he did it.

Fearlessness has been an adjective used to describe Winston. He certainly was every bit of that against the Colts.

Finally I want to highlight some of the ways Winston “snapped and cleared”, as he would say. What that means is that, even after mistakes, Winston and his head coach just move on to the next play – they have to. They put it behind them and do what they need to do to make up for it and move on. Now, would you like the mistakes to be less numerous? Of course, but this attitude of Winston’s is still important to note because if the turnovers do come down, then he will still have this attitude and mental fortitude to make up for them as their number become fewer.

On the play above, Winston had already thrown his first interception of the game. He also saw running back Dare Ognubowale fumble a ball at midfield. The team once again started the game with two early turnovers. Yet when he saw the green light to attempt a high risk high reward pass, Winston took it.

Touchdown.

This is the last play I wanted to point out from the Colts game because I believe it is the one that held the most hidden value.

At the point in the game in which Winston threw that ball, his team was down 14 points at home with about five minutes to go in the third quarter. Winston had already thrown two interceptions and was down double-digits to a team he really shouldn’t have been. It was all there. The broken record of turnovers that Winston can’t stop throwing, the fact that the Bucs can’t win at home, the fact that they can’t beat the bad teams, and the narrative that no matter how the game goes, the Bucs will always find a way to lose.

The play above was a 33-yard throw and catch to tight end O.J. Howard, a player the team has struggled to use this season. That didn’t matter. It was also coming in a point of the game was hopefulness was more prevalent that belief. That didn’t matter. And it was also a throw over a player in coverage who had already picked Winston off twice when he tried to go over the top of him. That didn’t matter.

Winston snapped and he cleared. He saw the throw he needed to make and he went for it. Over any lack of trust with Howard. Over Darius Leonard’s zone. Over the losing culture.

He did what he needed to do. That spark the drive, which sparked the score, which spark belief, which gave way to the win.