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Jameis Winston, Most Valuable Player? Hey, maybe so. Anything could happen. One sort-of vote of confidence in the New Orleans Saints passer comes from ESPN staff writer Bill Barnwell, who sorted various MVP candidates around the league into tiers before choosing Winston as his favorite option in “Tier IV.” Here’s what he wrote:
“I’m tempted to pick Fitzpatrick, given that the Harvard product is joining a Washington team with a great defense and has actually been a very good quarterback for most of the past two seasons. But Winston is the easy pick here. Playing for Sean Payton with Michael Thomas at wide receiver behind an excellent Saints offensive line, Winston has the chance to blow away expectations and his previously established label as a gaffe-prone quarterback. He certainly could lose the quarterback competition in camp to Hill and spend the entire year on the bench, but we’re looking for the highest upside, not the highest floor.”
Now here’s the caveat, which you could probably guess: the other long-shots Barnwell lumped Winston with include Fitzpatrick, Taysom Hill, Andy Dalton, Tyrod Taylor, and Winston’s predecessor Teddy Bridgewater. That isn’t exactly a group of world beaters.
For comparison, the oddsmakers at BetMGM gave Winston a slightly better shot at winning MVP (+5,000) than his own teammate, Alvin Kamara (+6,600; only four running backs have won the award since 2000). Of the other quarterbacks in Barnwell’s tier, Winston ranks well ahead of Fitzpatrick, Dalton, and Bridgewater (+15,000 each). Neither Hill nor Taylor are even listed.
But the real takeaway here is that Winston has a long way to go before he’ll win any respect around this league. He still has a reputation as a mistake-prone gunslinger. There are real doubts about whether he can command the Saints locker room and lead this team back to the playoffs. Let’s see if he can prove the doubters wrong.
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