To properly tell this story, I have to start in 2019, a fateful year for Jameis Winston.
That was the infamous 33-touchdown, 30-interception campaign for the former No. 1 overall pick, an unprecedented rollercoaster ride that prompted the Buccaneers to not re-sign him and set their sights on one Tom Brady.
Those 30 interceptions would be a lasting blemish, as evidenced by what happened in free agency. Although Winston led the NFL with 5,109 passing yards in 2019 and was second in touchdown passes with 33, he went unsigned until after the draft and agreed to a one-year, $1.1 million deal with the Saints. A $1.1 million contract in the same offseason with Teddy Bridgewater inking a three-year, $63 million deal with the Panthers that included $33 million guaranteed and Case Keenum signing with the Browns on a three-year, $18 million pact with $10 million guaranteed.
This confirmed NFL coaches’ immense aversion to high-risk play. It was as if the 33 touchdowns and 5,000-plus passing yards didn’t matter. And neither was Winston’s 4.7% big-time throw rate, which was the same as unanimous MVP Lamar Jackson and higher than Dak Prescott, Tom Brady, and Drew Brees, among others, in 2019.
After barely playing in 2020, Winston started in each of the next two seasons and threw a combined 18 touchdowns to eight picks at a respectable 7.4 yards per attempt and a 60.8% completion rate. As the immediate successor to Brees in New Orleans, Winston tore his ACL and MCL in 2021, returned, and suffered broken bones in his back in 2022 before losing the starting gig to Andy Dalton. Things may have been different for Winston’s career arc had he not torn those knee ligaments in 2021, when he was playing somewhat volatile, yet mostly quality football. He only threw the football more than 25 times in two games that season, but pre-injury, his rating was 102.8 through six and a half contests before he was dancing in the locker room on crutches.
Bizarrely, or maybe not so bizarrely, in 2022 and 2023, Winston was an afterthought as a potential long-term starter in New Orleans. The club opted for Dalton and then signed Derek Carr, the latter of whom has spent the majority of his career on the opposite end of the aggressiveness spectrum as Winston and is nearly three years older.
And now, Winston is essentially quarterbacking the Browns by default after Deshaun Watson’s Achilles tear and second-year pro Dorian Thompson-Robinson‘s injured finger.
It took all those cards to fall for Winston to get a starting gig again in the NFL, and with the reins completely off for the first time since that 2019 campaign — because he was rarely if ever “unleashed” under Sean Payton — Winston threw 334 yards at 8.1 yards per attempt, completed nearly 66% of his throws and threw three touchdowns without a pick — although he was lucky in the latter statistic — in a Browns’ comeback win over the previously 5-2 Ravens.
And within Kevin Stefanski’s time-tested, quarterback-friendly system, Winston has the physical goods and the fearlessness as a thrower to make the Browns relevant in the AFC playoff picture. I really believe that. It’ll be a long climb back to said relevancy, but, like Joe Flacco in 2023, Winston has the arm strength and willingness needed to pull the trigger on anticipatory throws and tight-window tosses, elements that were completely devoid from this passing offense in 2024 before Watson’s injury and were rare occurrences last season before Flacco took over.
If you haven’t been able to tell already, I think Winston has gotten a raw deal since 2019 simply because of his vastly different style than the overwhelming majority of quarterbacks in today’s NFL that has featured more and more “schemed up” production from offenses each season.
I never understood why his negatives so significantly outweighed his positives that he was only worth a $1 million in free agency, then not genuinely considered for the Saints starting job in 2022 or 2023.
Full disclosure, if this piece feels premature, that’s because it is. It’d be most fitting as a celebratory tip of the cap to Winston after he elevated the Browns to yet another playoff push with a backup quarterback.
But if how freely he played in the impressive win over the Ravens was any indication, with an average depth of target of a hefty 12 yards, the Browns’ offense can be explosive enough — yes, even with some inevitable turnover hiccups — for this Winston-led team to make some legitimate noise in the AFC over the final two months of this regular season.
