All Twenty-Tuesday: Winston’s Monday Best

I said this after the Bucs vs,. Falcons game in our “Most Impressive” article, but I personally think that last week’s game was the best game of Jameis Winston’s career.

Yes, he’s thrown for more yards in a game – see the Falcons game last season. Yes, he’s thrown for more touchdowns in a game – see the Eagles game his rookie year. But, Winston’s 27-for-35 (77.1 percent with four drops and two clocked passes) passing for 299 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions were more impressive to me than any other single performance because of how it came about.

Winston’s narrative is that he struggles in primetime games; he didn’t.

Winston’s narrative was that all his yards come from garbage time; they weren’t.

Winston’s narrative is that his inaccuracy will eventually hurt him at some point every game; it didn’t.

Let’s take a deeper look into Winston’s day and breakdown just why it was so impressive.

So we took all that time above to talk about how great Winston was and we start with one of his misses?

Yes, but is one was early on and it had some meaning to it. Tight end Cameron Brate got a bit shaken up after this hit, understandably, but it’s one of those football plays that just happen every now and then. Was this throw and Brate getting rocked Winston’s fault? Yes, it was. But, if you watch, Winston throws it at the perfect time for the coverage. He had to wait until the linebacker didn’t commit to following Brate to try and thread the needle. The pass could have been a hair closer to Brate to protect him more, but this was just a good job by the safety of reading Winston’s eyes and making an athletic jump on the route.

The placement could have been a little more behind Brate for this particular play, but it also hinted at Winston being a gun slinger this game – which he was, and it was what he needed to be.

I’m going a bit out of order in terms of compliments for Winston, but we’re getting there, I promise. This is all just the set up for context. In the play above, Winston completed the pass, but as team begin to key on him reading the middle of the field more and more (that will happen next year, trust me), I’d like him to recognize in the pre-snap that wide receiver Adam Humphries (top of the screen) was likely to have a lot of open space to his left since Winston knew the route combination and how it was going to fare versus such soft off coverage like the Falcons were showing.

It’s not as much a decision where Winston can go through progression, as the play was designed for a quick throw, but perhaps he would have noticed a more open player before the ball was even hiked. Winston has a few of those every game.

It’s sort of nit-picking since the pass was completed, but maximizing your offense’s potential is the ultimate goal.

Now this play, this play, my friends, was *gesture of Italian chef kissing his fingers*

We have taken plenty of shots at Dirk Koetter for some of his head-scratching play calls this season, but this one was beautiful from the planning to the execution – which sort of just makes you wonder why we haven’t seen it more, but that’s another topic for another day.

The play above was on third-and-short. It involved a good fake of play action, since the down and distance allowed for there to be a threat of a run or pass, and tight end O.J. Howard did that move where he starts the play and acts like he’s blocking only to slip loose with no one guarding him. It’s plays like this that make Howard worth every bit of the draft pick they spent on him.

If you watch it a few times, you’ll also be able to notice that Winston went through two different progression before he even went to Howard. He spent an appropriate time looking at each to see if they were open and eventually found the correct throw. As stated before, this one was perfect.

One area of his game that Winston has struggled with with regularity this season is throwing the ball beep down the sideline.

On Monday, Winston showed a big step forward in that regard, at least for one game. The play above was nullified due to a pass interference call on wide receiver Mike Evans, but the placement of the pass was perfect nonetheless. Winston seemed very relaxed when pressure was around him and when the moment called for a tight pass near the sideline.

The play above was another example of a well-thrown sideline pass.

There have been too many times this season where we’ve seen Winston attempt a pass to the sideline only for it to sail out of bounds without a chance of it being caught. If you don’t even give your receiver a chance to catch it, you’ve already given up the play. On the other hand, if you don’t throw it with pace and on target, you open yourself up to a turnover – this is where fear can creep in.

The best quarterbacks in the league don’t throw with fear, especially to the sideline. More so than any other game this season, I saw Winston throw the ball to the sideline with total confidence.

Even when the ball wasn’t thrown total to the sideline, Winston also had much better chemistry with his receivers (really just wide receiver Mike Evans) when throwing the ball deep down the field. The play above would have been beautiful for the Bucs if not for the offensive pass interference call on Evans.

Koetter was asked earlier this week about Evans’ big day and one of the quotes that came form his answer was “I’ve had those conversations with Jameis, like, hey, wasn’t life easier when we just threw it up to Mike Evans?”

Yes, coach, it was, and it showed on Monday night.

Against the Falcons, Winston actually gave his receiver at chance to catch the ball. He didn’t try too hard to lead them or do all the work himself by getting the ball away from the defender. Instead, as evident by the clip above, Winston saw a 1-on-1 match-up and gave his guys a chance to make a play – for the most part they did.

The play above (a touchdown that actually counted) was also a great job by Winston just to give his receiver a chance to make a play.

Perhaps there is something to the fact that the Buccaneers have too many weapons, or that Winston thinks he has to get all his receivers fed in the same game. On Monday night, after DeSean Jackson went out with a foot injury, it seemed like force-feeding Evans, like the Bucs have done over the last two years, was working for them.

This is how the game-plan should go. It should be all about Evans. The good part is, when, in fact, you go away from Evans due to the defense keying in on him, that’s when the elevated weapons around him can shine.

Run the offense through Evans and the rest will come.

Something I noticed in the second touchdown clip that I wanted to elaborate on further was Winston’s ability to move with comfort around a troubled pocket.

The video directly above showed more evidence to how well Winston was able to play out of structure. People like to say that Winston plays best from outside the pocket and that the offense should be designed for that, but that doesn’t really make sense. It’s very difficult to plan or structure that kind of chaos, it’s something that has to happen naturally – although the Bucs do practice chaos plays with Winston during the week. When it does happen naturally, as seen above, Winston thrives. You hate to see some of the boneheaded plays like the fumble/interception from the Green Bay game, but when Winston is in a groove he can make good risky decisions like the one above look smart.

I believe the “good Winston” outside of the pocket was epitomized in his final touchdown of the game to Humphries.

Winston had good protection for a decent amount of time, but with no one open he knew it was time to bail. He ran in the direction where he knew an option might come open, and delivered a ball while on the run that was perfect to a route that was totally improvised throwing across his body for the score.

The way Winston managed pressure coming at him and his passes while completely outside the pocket were stellar on Monday, and that’s why he had the highest completion percentage of his career (77.1 percent).

The last things I want to point out from Winston’s performance were how he handled the final drive that ultimately led to a missed field goal.

Winston started that drive with the ball at his own 25-yard line with a minute left in the game and zero timeouts – not ideal.

On the first play, he cannoned a pass to Brate between two defenders without any hesitation. it was a risky pass, but one that had to be made, and he knew it – so he did it.

A first down.

On the next play, Winston threw a timed route to the sideline to wide receiver Freddie Martino. Winston threw the ball so quick that Martino almost didn’t get his head around to catch it. But, Winston had to throw it with that pace to to possibility give Martino the chance to separate and get out of bounds. He didn’t get out of bounds, but the ball was perfect for the route.

A first down.

With no timeouts and none of his receivers able to get out of bounds, Winston knew he had to work quick.

On his third pass, he threw another bullet of a pass to Brate who had a defender all over him. However, Winston was able to place the ball on Brate’s right side far enough form the defender to warrant the catch.

Winston was 3-for-3 on the drive with three fantastic passes that gave his team a chance to win down the stretch.

As you can understand by now, it wasn’t just the stats that made this past Monday’s performance by Winston the most impressive performance of his career – it was the way he did it.

Perhaps this is the first time he’s truly been healthy in a long, long time. If it is and this really is the Winston of Year Three that we thought we were getting out of the gate, that’s going to change a lot of previous conversations we’ve had about him if he builds off of it going into 2018.