No quarterback has even thrown 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in the same season in the history of professional football. George Blanda threw 42 picks in 14 games for the 1962 Houston Oilers of the American Football League, and he managed just 27 touchdowns. Vinny Testaverde holds the modern and NFL records with 35 picks in 1988 for the Buccaneers, and he threw just 13 touchdown passes. Of the other quarterbacks in the 30-plus interception club, John Hadl of the 1968 San Diego Chargers (AFL again; this was a thing in this league) had 32 picks to 27 touchdowns. Lynn Dickey of the 1983 Green Bay Packers had 32 touchdown passes and 29 interceptions, leaving us all feeling a bit cheated.
Following his four interceptions in Tampa Bay’s Saturday 23-20 loss to the Texans, Jameis Winston is now very much on pace to become the first guy to do it. Winston already had the 30 touchdown passes, adding one more on Saturday, and he’s now up to 28 picks on the season. Just two more against the Falcons in the season finale, and Winston will make a very odd brand of pro football history.
Against Houston, Winston threw his first pass of the game to Texans cornerback Bradley Roby, who returned it for a 27-yard touchdown.
A national TV audience is introduced to the JameisCoaster pic.twitter.com/ILM2PciGUa
— Rivers McCown (@riversmccown) December 21, 2019
Those who have observed Winston all season would find this easy to believe. Winston has thrown interceptions on the Bucs’ opening drives six times this season, and for the fifth time in Tampa Bay’s last seven games. Unbelievably, the Buccaneers were 4-0 in the previous four games, and had Winston not thrown three more on this day, they might have easily been 5-0. Because Winston, as flawed as he is when warming up into a game, also has an rare ability to redeem himself. In Week 14 and 15 wins over the Colts and Lions, Winston became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for more than 450 yards in two straight games, and his touchdown-to-interception ratio was 8-4.
The Buccaneers have a complicated decision to make with Winston, who is on schedule to be a free agent at the start of the 2020 league year. Should the team place the franchise tag on him and hope another year with Bruce Arians as his head coach will tame his rogue tendencies? Should they give him a long-term contract with major quarterback-level dollars and hope everything works out?
This is not a decision I would want to have to make. It’s easy enough to say that you’d jettison Winston, who will be 26 years old when the new league year starts. But if he goes somewhere else, figures it out, and becomes one of the pre-eminent quarterbacks of his era, you will, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.
That said, let’s go through the six opening-drive picks Winston has thrown this season and see if there are any clues to his current maddening inconsistency, and perhaps his eventual football redemption.