Dear Tampa Bay Buccaneers,
You lucky dogs. Out of the entire field of college talent in this year’s NFL Draft, you get your choice. With the No. 1 pick in the draft, you are restraint-free on which player you choose.
But for your own sake, do not draft Jameis Winston. I know you want to, but do not do it. And for that matter, don’t even take a quarterback. It is historically stupid to do so with the first pick in the draft.
Jameis Winston is a Heisman-winning quarterback. I get that. His freshman year at Florida State in 2013 propelled him into household-name status, leading the Seminoles to a national title victory. He was definitely the most dynamic and electric player in college football, earning him the Heisman Trophy.
Your head coach, Lovie Smith, has showered Winston with praise, making it all-too clear that he will be donning a Buccaneers hat on draft night. Smith said that he is “very comfortable” with Winston as your quarterback because he has a “track record—he’s got a Heisman behind him. He’s got a national championship.”
I hope Lovie Smith knows what other quarterbacks have Heismans behind them: Johnny Manziel, Troy Smith, Matt Leinart. How are they doing in the NFL? Troy Smith and Leinart barely had NFL careers, and Manziel’s future is in question. In fact, besides Cam Newton, no Heisman-winner since 2002 has made an impact in the NFL.
But why is that? Well, what kinds of teams get the top draft picks? Bad teams, i.e. teams with the worst records. This year, that bad team is you. And so when a bad team picks a quarterback early in the draft, it expects him to immediately become the savior of the franchise. Great college players like Winston frequently are drafted early because they are the best. And bad teams want the best.
The problem is that such a player has no supporting cast. He is thrown into an impossible situation, trying to carry the dregs of the league on his back all by himself and without any experience. And when it doesn’t work, as is the case nine times out of ten, he is automatically a bust. It may work that one time out of ten—Andrew Luck and Cam Newton have led their teams to the playoffs on multiple occasions—but they need to be special talents to succeed. Winston excelled in college, but he is no special talent.
With all of your scouts and experts, I’m sure your research is light-years ahead of mine, but I only want to point out some quite basic observations. First of all, Winston makes a lot of mistakes. In only three games last year did he fail to throw an interception, and in five games he threw more than one. In a game against an abysmal Florida team, and with Florida State in the midst of championship hopes, Winston threw four interceptions. And he threw all of them while backed up in his own territory, a spot where holding onto the ball is imperative.
Against mediocre competition throughout his sophomore season, Winston made error after error, only to squeak by a schedule of college football also-rans with an undefeated regular season. You can say, then, that he’s a winner, that even though he makes all of those mistakes he always finds a way to win.
For his entire college career, though, Winston had a stout Florida State defense to back him up and hide his lapses. A defense that allows only 23 points per game gives a quarterback room for error. Yet, like Winston, your Buccaneers are young and inexperienced. Your defense ranked near the bottom in the league in every stat last year. So when your quarterback throws those interceptions and loses the ball, who will back him up? Who will mitigate those problems and make them non-issues?
Lovie Smith has made great teams out of mediocre quarterbacks, but he also had the defensive talent to help. Those teams were led by defense. If you draft Winston, your team would need to be led by offense. And that will not be possible with him at the helm.
So if you shouldn’t take Winston, what should you do with your No. 1 pick? Truly, the best option is to trade it. The Bears and Eagles may be looking for a quarterback, and you can use their later draft picks to build your team from the ground up. You may even get a veteran quarterback in the process.
What makes a draft successful, especially for a rebuilding team like yours, is creating solid depth, not top-heavy star power. Drafting Winston might be the most exciting option, and it will definitely create buzz at training camp, but it will leave the rest of your team shallow with a shaky quarterback in charge. So stock up on linemen and linebackers and defensive backs. They can create a foundation for later years and NFL-ready quarterbacks.
But I understand that I have no sway in this. You no doubt have already made your decision and are just waiting for draft night to announce it. It will be Winston because you like that “track record” of his. And that track record is not bad; I am not saying that it is bad. I am saying, though, that it is irrelevant. Even though Winston was great in college, his career on a team like yours would crumble within one season.
Rookie quarterbacks are not supposed to be NFL-ready. But when they are thrown onto a bad team and are expected to turn it around, they cannot afford to make mistakes. In order for Winston to be successful, he has to be able to learn from interceptions and bad on-field choices without pressure. If you draft him, the pressure will be insurmountable. His mistakes will be magnified ten-fold because your team is not good enough to bury a few errors in a field of success.
I know you will draft Jameis Winston on April 30. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. •
