The PewterReport.com Roundtable features the opinions of the PR staff as it tackles a topic related to the Tampa Bay Bucs each week.

This week’s topic: Who Should Be The Bucs’ QB This Week?

Scott Reynolds: Close Out The Season With Winston
I don’t blame Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter for sticking with Ryan Fitzpatrick. Overall this season, he’s played better than Jameis Winston. Fitzpatrick has got a higher completion percentage – 67.1 percent to 64.9 percent. He’s thrown for more yards – 2,199 to 1,181. He’s averaging more passing yards per game – 304.3 to 280.3. He’s got a better TD:INT ratio – 17:9 to 6:10. He also gets sacked less often and has a higher QB rating – 107.3 to 74.7.

Koetter wants to keep his job and feels Fitzpatrick is the best guy to make that happen. I was on board with that strategy until Sunday’s loss at Washington when Fitz had zero touchdowns and committed three turnovers, just like I was on board with the strategy to play Winston until his four-interception debacle at Cincinnati. Koetter made the right move to go with Winston after the Chicago game. He also made the right move to go back to Fitzpatrick after the Cincinnati game.

But he’s making the wrong move right now. At 3-6, Tampa Bay’s chances of making the playoffs this year are slim to none. A win against Washington, which would have happened if not for some dreadful missed field goals and awful play in the red zone, would have gotten the Bucs to 4-5 with winnable games coming up against the Giants and the 49ers. A 6-5 record was not out of the question. Now, the best the Bucs can do is 5-6 heading into three NFC South games against better teams, along with tough road games at Baltimore and Dallas.

Bucs QB Jameis Winston and head coach Dirk Koetter – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Can you say 6-10 or 7-9? I think the Glazers need to see if Koetter can salvage this season and get to 8-8. If that happens they could buy into the argument that it was a tough year, especially defensively, but they won three more games than the previous year while playing in the toughest division in football. I just don’t think Fitzpatrick can get this team to five more wins to make that happen – not with a defense that can’t take the ball away.

So when does Koetter finally wave the white flag and go back to Winston – when the Bucs are 4-9 or 5-8? Great, then the Glazers will only have three more games to evaluate Winston before moving ahead with a $20.92 million fifth year option payout. Because ultimately it’s their call. Koetter and G.M. Jason Licht might not be around. That doesn’t help the Buccaneers in 2019 and beyond regardless of which general manager and head coach is in place.

I’m at the point where the Bucs should let Winston’s play over the seven games of the season determine his fate in Tampa Bay. Three or four games is too small of a sample size, especially playing against some of the elite teams coming up like New Orleans and Carolina. Winston showed he could barely beat the Browns in overtime. I would like to see how he would fare against the likes of the Giants and the 49ers in addition to the upcoming juggernauts.

Koetter will eventually go back to Winston later this season – but only when it’s too late for Koetter to keep his job and too late to truly give Winston a bigger window of opportunity to show improvement. That kind of “too late mentality” has been happening too often this season in Tampa Bay. Mike Smith should have been fired during the bye week. Chandler Catanzaro should have been replaced with Cairo Santos weeks ago, etc.

Mark Cook: What In The Hell Is This Team Thinking? Winston, Duh
A season that has gone off the rails got even crazier this past Monday when Dirk Koetter said Ryan Fitzpatrick would start against the Giants. Say what?

So he is saying that he and the Bucs are completely done with Jameis Winston? It appears as if Koetter is. Because why else would you not ride with Winston the last seven games? If you aren’t done with him, and think there is even a small chance he is the future moving forward, to do anything but play Winston is just an awful decision.

So Koetter thinks this team is going to go on a seven-game winning streak and make the playoffs? Yeah, and I will be waiting for my Pulitzer Prize award to show up any day now, too.

There has to be more to this that Koetter just going with Fitzpatrick. There has to be some sort of rift between the two. There is no way Koetter and this organization thinks that Fitzpatrick is the future of this team, or that all of a sudden, after 14 years in the NFL, that  it has clicked for Fitzpatrick. It certainly didn’t click last Sunday against Washington.

Bucs QB Ryan Fitzpatrick – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

And wasn’t Winston benched for too many turnovers? Don’t look now but Fitzpatrick has had five in the last two games, including a deflating interception on the Bucs’ first drive. And while we are on the subject of bad decisions, why is this team designing a play for Shaun Wilson, an undrafted free agent running back, when you have players like Mike Evans, O.J. Howard, DeSean Jackson, Cam Brate, Chris Godwin and even Adam Humphries on this team? Mind blowing, really.

The Bucs’ ship is quickly sinking, and it looks like a lot of people will be going down with it. Once again, a promising season has evaporated to the point where we are already looking at where the Bucs will be drafting next April.

Perhaps in a few months we will know more about this quarterback mess and maybe Koetter had some legitimate reasons for sticking with Fitzpatrick. Not all is what it appears on the surface sometimes. Just look at the Greg Schiano and Josh Freeman debacle. There was a lot going on behind the scenes there. Or maybe this is just a case of Koetter holding on to the glimmer of hope. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but that is why I am sitting in the media room writing and speculating about it instead of sitting upstairs making personnel decisions.

Say what you want about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, at least it is never boring being a Bucs fan or covering this team. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming of As The World Turns …

Trevor Sikkema: Gotta Be Winston
When Dirk Koetter made the decision to make Ryan Fitzpatrick the starter in Carolina, I thought it was the right choice. Heck, I even thought it was the right choice sticking with him after that loss and saying he was the guy for the Washington game, too. But with this team all but mathematically eliminated from the playoffs now at 3-6, it’s time to put Jameis Winston back in.

Perhaps they are waiting to officially be out of playoff contention to make the move back to Winston, but it’s just wasting time until then. Starting Fitzpatrick made sense because they had to see if the magic that got them to 2-0 was still there. They had to see if the only guy to overcome the defense for the Bucs could do it again when Koetter desperately needed him to most at 3-4. He couldn’t, and they’re now 3-6.

Bucs QB Jameis Winston – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Even if they were 4-5 this might be a little different, but they’re not. It is time for Winston again. I understand that Koetter is doing what he thinks is best to get a win this Sunday in New York, but man, this really is the eye-opener that he knows he won’t be back if they don’t go on a big run here. Not starting Winston, at this point, is being as short-sighted as you can be. And he better hope it works – I suppose there’s always at least a little hope that it does.

I’m not sure what happens after this week. If they lose to the Giants, I expect Winston to go back in, but I thought that about this week, too. Will the Glazers and Jason Licht have to step in at some point if Koetter doesn’t go back to Winston soon here? I mean, they have a lot of uncertain money ($20.92 million) riding on Winston. Fitzpatrick means nothing to them long-term. And what if they beat the Giants? Is it another week lost in the long run? There are a lot of factors here.

It’s not going to be Winston this week, but it should be. What another weird, mishandled year this has turned out to be.