Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Jameis Winston warned them of his fatal flaw

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are learning an old lesson when it comes to economics. You get what you pay for. Jameis Winston is a perfect example.

The team should’ve known what they were getting themselves into when they drafted him 1st overall in 2015. He’d already been an off-the-field headache at Florida State with a number of sexual-related incidents that might’ve landed less high profile players in jail. So they couldn’t have been surprised when he found similar troubles when he got to the NFL where his name garnered even more attention.

Yet that’s not what has the franchise so frustrated these days. It’s the unbelievable rate at which Winston has been turning the football over. In his last five games as a starter, Winston has 13 interceptions. His decision-making has been utterly appalling and it’s cost the Buccaneers some winnable games. At last head coach Dirk Koetter decided to bench him in favor of Ryan Fitzpatrick.

It was a humbling moment for the supposed savior of the franchise, but also a glaring instant that deserved criticism for Tampa Bay. They should’ve seen it coming. Why? According to Peter King of NBC Sports, Winston warned them three years ago before the draft.

"In the weeks before the draft, Koetter had a long classroom session with Winston. They discussed his last year at FSU, when he threw 18 interceptions and had at least seven other passes dropped or missed by the opposition. Koetter pressed Winston about it, and Winston, according to Koetter, told him: “I’m not afraid of making any throw.”“You need to be,” Koetter told Winston."

Winston is another example of coaching hubris taking over

The thing about all of this? It’s ego. Winston has a huge ego in thinking he can make any throw without consequences. Yet he’s not the only one at fault here. It’s also the fault of the Buccaneers coaches too. They had the egos to think that their coaching was better than what the young QB had gotten in college and they could “cure” him of him turnover-prone ways. Except there aren’t many cases in NFL history where that’s been proven true.

Brett Favre was turnover-prone in college and for most of his NFL career it was the same. Sure he had bouts of good play where he kept the interceptions under control, but he still threw the ball to the other team way too often. Winston doesn’t have Favre’s talent. Even Dan Marino, who had turnover tendencies in college never really got over them in the NFL. He just masked them with absurd numbers in yards and touchdowns.

This is who Winston is. This is who the Buccaneers drafted and now they need to own it.