Advertisement

Tampa Bay Buccaneers name Winston starting quarterback

By The Sports Xchange

TAMPA, Fla. -- In something less than shocking news, Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Lovie Smith announced Friday that Jameis Winston will be the starting quarterback and take snaps with the first team when practice begins Saturday.

"Jameis Winston will be our starting quarterback," Smith said shortly after players reported to training camp Friday. "He'll take first reps tomorrow. We're excited about that."

Advertisement

They should be excited. Winston was the top pick of the 2015 draft. Still, Smith did his best to make it sound like a difficult decision.

"A lot of things go into that," he claimed, referring to announcing Winston as the starter. "We've had a lot of evaluation of him. It's where we feel like he is and we brought him here to be our quarterback. We feel like he's ready to take this next step."

Advertisement

The Bucs refused to hand the job to Winston in the offseason, making him split first-team repetitions with third-year pro Mike Glennon. But after a 2-14 season, there was a reason that Smith and general manager Jason Licht targeted Winston as the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

Winston was a prodigious talent at Florida State, leading the Seminoles to an undefeated season and national championship while winning the Heisman Trophy as a redshirt freshman two years ago. He lost only one game during his collegiate career.

However, Winston was one of the most polarizing players in the draft because of his off-field issues in college, including stealing soda at Burger King, participating in a BB gun fight in which Seminoles players shot out more than $4,000 worth of windows, shoplifting crab legs at Publix, getting suspended for a game after standing on a table at the student union and shouting a vulgar phrase, being sued over a sexual assault allegation and countersuing for defamation.

But so far with the Bucs, Winston minimized doubts about his ability to make the transition to the pro game at 21 years old. He has picked up the offense quickly.

Advertisement

Smith said he believes Winston is ready for the rigors of being in the spotlight as an NFL quarterback and the scrutiny that comes with it.

"A lot has been said about Jameis and mentors and things like that," Smith said. "Jameis doesn't need a mentor. Jameis is ready to take the reins and go with it. The mental part, the physical part, and just being a quarterback in the NFL and being able to take all the criticism that goes with that, he's ready for it.

"I just know how I feel. I feel strongly about this. We feel like we've let Jameis go through the process of the offseason, getting limited reps, working with both groups. We put him in that position but eventually you have to put him in the lead position and let him go."

Smith said he informed Winston of the decision but had not addressed the team about it Friday.

"He was excited and ready to go," Smith said. "It's not like it was a total shock to him or anything like that. We brought him here to be our starting quarterback and he is."

But Smith was quick to say the Bucs can't expect Winston to carry the team as a rookie.

Advertisement

"A lot will be talked about the quarterback, but how we're perceived and how we do this season will be based on a lot more than just that," Smith said. "Offensively, we have to do some other things a lot better around the quarterback position, mainly running the football. Defensively, we have to start the season the way we finished up playing defense and that's playing a lot better defense than we did early on."

Rookie quarterbacks, especially those drafted No. 1 overall such as the Carolina Panthers' Cam Newton and the Indianapolis Colts' Andrew Luck, have recently been thrust into starting roles in their first year with surprising success.

In 2012, Luck went 11-5 and lost in the wild-card playoff. Robert Griffin III, who was picked No. 2 overall that season, led the Washington Redskins to a 10-6 record and NFC East title as a rookie in 2012. Russell Wilson, a third-round pick of the Seattle Seahawks the same year, went 11-5 before losing in the divisional playoffs.

"They're being put into that role quicker, too," Smith said. "I've seen that from afar. I have had a rookie quarterback -- it's been a while ago but you still remember -- in Kyle Orton. For us, a lot of it was on the coaching staff to know when to give him a certain amount and we did that. What we did is we played great defense with a rookie quarterback, we had a great running game with him and we asked our quarterback to do more and more each week.

Advertisement

"As I look at what Russell Wilson did ... at first he was asked to do a lot less than what he was a little bit later in the season. But that does not mean if we have 60 plays, we're going to run the ball 55 times. No. We expect our quarterback to function."

But Smith cautioned that Winston has a lot of improvement to make during the preseason. The Bucs host the Tennessee Titans in the regular-season opener on Sept. 13. Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, who was picked one spot behind Winston, has been named the Titans' starter.

"We're not game-ready. We're not Tennessee-ready by any means at a lot of positions," Smith said. "But (Winston) needs to move into that role right now and we all feel good about him going there."

Latest Headlines