Buccaneers: Jameis Winston at his best throwing to tight ends
The statistics show that Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston is at his best when throwing to his tight ends.
Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston has quite the thing going with Mike Evans, does he not? In two years, the duo has connected 170 times for 15 touchdowns. Winston has targeted Evans a whopping 321 times, and his 173 targets in 2016 were the most in the NFL. At an average of 85 connections per season, these two will be challenging the likes of Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison in no time.
With that, you would think that Winston was at his best when throwing to wide receivers. You would think he posts big ratings when throwing to the outside. Guess what? Wrong.
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It turns out his best work has been when throwing to the tight end. According to Pro Football Focus, Winston has the fifth-best passer rating when throwing to tight ends since entering the NFL (116.8). Conversely, he has the third-worst rating (84.4) when throwing to all other positions. That drop is the largest of any quarterback during that time period.
This is an interesting metric in that the Bucs invested a first round pick in the best tight end in the draft. We already knew that O.J. Howard was going to make the team better. The part we didn’t realize was how good Winston was at getting the ball to the tight end already. That could have played into the decision to use the pick on the tight end, rather than a guy like Dalvin Cook.
Why has this number dropped so far off? Well, we all know that the play at wide receiver behind Evans has not been great thus far. The depth chart has been lacking, and that meant a lot of passes were forced to Evans. 170 receptions out of 321 targets amounts to about 52%. That’s not great. It means that either there were drops or forced passes. At one time, it was both. Evans improved his hands, but his partners on the depth chart have not been the best. Much of the defense’s attention is put on Evans which makes him put up most of his catches in traffic. If you look at some of the receptions this guy has had to make, it’s a wonder that he caught this many passes.
When you have a washing up Vincent Jackson on one side and unproven wide receivers on the other, it’s difficult to find camaraderie with the position. Even Evans had difficulty with drops early in his career. Has Winston been the most accurate? No, far from it. But he hasn’t had a lot of help from many of his friends either.
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These numbers should get better. The moves that have been made will help Winston get those numbers to where they belong. The stat is interesting, though. Who knew that Winston and Cameron Brate had such good relations?