The story of the 2019 offseason was quarterback Jameis Winston and how he’d perform under first-year head coach and quarterback guru Bruce Arians in a contract year.
Now, as we find ourselves in the midst of the 2020 offseason, the story is once again Winston and his future status with the Bucs. In a year in which he became just the eighth quarterback in league history to throw for over 5,000 yards in season, Winston also became the first quarterback ever to throw for 30 touchdowns and 30 interceptions in a season.
Suffice it to say, the Bucs are not about to back up the armored truck for Winston, at least in the long-run. Many predict the quarterback could find himself back in Tampa Bay in 2020 on another one-year “prove it deal.”
However, as Bruce Arians recently told ESPN’s Jenna Laine at the NFL Coaches Academy, the team doesn’t have clarity on the quarterback position yet because they don’t know which quarterbacks will be on the open market once free agency starts next month.
“No, because you don’t know who’s available. You’re just sitting and waiting to see, is there someone available? And is he a better option? That’s the problem. You get about three days to decide — the legal tampering [period]. Is somebody else gonna get let go? What’s the trade values? It’s really monotonous right now because you don’t really have any answers.”
I love that last line by Arians: “You don’t really have any answers.” That, in and of itself, seems like an answer to the question of whether or not Winston should feel confident about returning to the Bucs. If the team was committed to the QB, even for just one more year, you wouldn’t be hearing comments like this. After all, Arians has publicly said that Shaq Barrett “ain’t going nowhere” and that extending wide receiver Chris Godwin was a high priority for the team this offseason, too.
Bruce Arians on the priority level of getting WR Chris Godwin signed to an extension: “It’s high.”
— Scott Smith (@ScottSBucs) December 30, 2019
The fact that Arians has shown such little public support for Winston should be cause for concern for the former Heisman Trophy winner.
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