For those who are still chaffing over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Devin White’s horse collar tackle on Jameis Winston, and how it kept him from what certainly would have the completion of his best year, ever, here’s more news.
According to sources, the Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden wanted to bring the Heisman Trophy winner to play for The Silver and Black after the 2019 NFL Season, but the Buccaneers did not make him available. “Gruden wanted Winston but was sure the Bucs were not parting with him because they gave that impression”, said my well-placed sources. (Update: that Gruden wanted Winston was confirmed by a number of sources, but what was not shared was that the Bucs were hanging on to Jameis until they could find a quarterback they wanted.)
Indeed, Tampa Bay played the delay game with Jameis Winston, holding up any announcement of their intentions. Basically, Bruce Arians, who said they would not sign Winston without seeing what was “behind door number two” at the February 2020 NFL Combine, wound up holding Winston back from getting a free-agent signing with a team before the Buccaneers could look behind door number two. But, Arians and Bucs GM Jason Licht made Winston wait for them to make a decision, effectively closing the door on any better deal he may have gotten.
To put it in more detail, the Bucs were initially prepared to make Winston a backup to the eventual new quarterback, Tom Brady, in effect keeping two NFL star passers.
Tampa Bay Always Wanted A QB They Did Not Have To Coach, Even As They Had Jameis Winston
In short, the Buccaneers clearly treated Jameis Winston like crap. The organization brought Winston in to be a deep-passer and had no interest in training Jameis to run a ball-control-passing offense. The decision to have Lovie Smith hire Dirk Kotter, then keep Dirk as head coach, then select Bruce Arians to replace him, reflected the organization’s desire to have Winston be a ticket-selling mad bomber. What the Bucs brain trust forgot, was that the amazing athletes on the defensive side of the ball today can render such offenses inept if they’re not based on the timed pass approach that Bill Walsh popularized.
Tampa Bay’s passing game under Koetter and Arians did not employ the training camp drills and playbook detail that direct the installation of a timed passing game, and the results are obvious. Arians and Koetter quarterbacks don’t throw from points along the hashmarks, or use landmarks. All one has to do to know this is watch film. What they achieved, the passers, was as much based on good fortune as anything else.
Want proof? Look at the 2018 Buccaneers where Ryan Fitzpatrick was thought to be the savior from Jameis Winston until he went out and threw three and four interceptions in games. Both quarterbacks were asked to run a badly designed offense and the media covering the Bucs didn’t know what it was watching, so offered up un-intelligent takes. Meanwhile Bucs coaches got away with coaching malpractice.
In bringing in Todd Monken as offensive coordinator in 2018, the Bucs continued the practice of bad passing game design. At the time, Mr. Monken did not know to install pass plays featuring what Bill Walsh called “moving launch points” And the reason I know this is I introduced him to an idea for a roll-out play later that year, and on Twitter. Yes, he was receptive, but one expects a ball-control passing offense coach to know to install those plays, not be reminded to do it. The reason he had to be reminded is because the Bucs priorities were not to re-create Bill Walsh’s passing game. They did not care about having a timed passing game system, let alone teaching it. They put a lot of bad ideas into Jameis head regarding the passing game. Approaches that Saints Coach Sean Peyton is making Winston forget.
The reason why Winston’s seasons with Tampa seemed to be “hit or miss” is the team did not have a systemic way of evaluating what quarterbacks did in their offensive system. In other words what plays worked best with certain quarterbacks and why with respect to time-motion-study. There’s a reason Bill Walsh was able to get consistently high play out of his quarterbacks at both NFL and college, from Joe Montana to Steve Young to Jeff Kemp to Jason Palumbis and the incredible Steve Stenstrom.
The answer: his attention to detail, training, and consistency to install his ball-control passing game. While Walsh wrote the blue print for it, organizations like the Buccaneers failed to follow it. Want proof? The Buccaneers should pray they don’t lose Tom Brady to injury, because there’s no system of detail, training, and consistency in place to guarantee the success of Blaine Gabbert. Just as there was none for Jameis Winston.
New Orleans Saints Is A Place Where Quarterbacks Are Molded, Not Where The QB Molds The Team
That Jon Gruden wanted Jameis Winston is a different scenario from the process of events that brought Winston to New Orleans. The Saints did not have Winston in mind; he picked New Orleans as the place he wanted to be. Everyone I have talked to said the plan was for Taysom Hill to be the heir to the Saints quarterback throne maintained by the legendary Drew Brees. But Winston, I am told, shocked the Saints.
“No one expected Jameis to come in and sit and just play the game,” said one source, and referring to the 2020 Season where Winston sat as the number three quarterback behind Brees and Hill, “but he did, and he won over the locker room. That’s the first thing,” said my contacts.
Over time during the 2021 NFL Offseason, Sean Peyton began to realize what he had in Jameis Winston, and how he could mold him into a better quarterback than he was at Tampa Bay. The turning point came in Winston’s world-beating performance versus the Jacksonville Jaquars on 2021 NFL Preseason Monday Night Football. Winston threw 9 of 10 passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns of the amazing variety.
That stage ended the Taysom Hill as starter over Winston talk, and for good. What made the contest even easier to call was Hill’s obviously upset and sulking behavior when situations did not go his way during that game when his time under center presented itself. Peyton named Jameis the starter by the next week.
What Sean Peyton has is a ball-control passing offense and the kind of system of detail, training, and consistency in place that the Bucs lacked. If Tampa had it, there would be no need for Tom Brady to come in and change anything – we know that he did. But what Sean Peyton started to see in Jameis Winston, Jon Gruden saw years before him. It was a matter of timing. What if Tampa allowed Winston to seek a new home before they signed Tom Brady? If that were the case, Jameis Winston would have been a Raider.
Nothing against Derek Carr, who’s having an MVP year, but if Jameis Winston were a Raider, he would have taken over the starting job from the Fresno State legend. Jon’s passing game is based on that of Bill Walsh and Andy Reid, and he comes from the school of molding quarterbacks, not finding signal callers he doesn’t have to coach. But Jameis Winston, even with his injury, is in a better place, and for a good reason.
Saints fans are about to see how different their offense is going to be without Winston. What everyone forgets is that now, after one game, the next opponent, the Atlanta Falcons, will have the beginnings of a blue-print of what the Saints will do with Trevor Siemien at the helm. I would not bet against Atlanta here, as many are doing.
Maybe Trevor Siemien will do well, but too many in the media are all-too-willing to assume he will be successful, where they were quick to believe Jameis would not be. In consideration, it’s best just to ignore the media here and watch what happens. But my prediction is Saints fans will start to see what they had in Jameis Winston.
I say this because, already, there’s stupid noise about letting Jameis Winston go, even with his injury. If the Saints are smart, they will not repeat the moves of Tampa Bay and sign Jameis Winston before the season is over. It’s the smart move because Jameis was being molded by Sean Peyton into a signal caller with other-worldly talent, and everyone now knows what Jon Gruden knew first: Jameis Winston is the perfect subject for the Bill Walsh timed passing game. Keep him.
Stay tuned.