Winston’s play shuts down Bridgewater trade speculation

It’s time to move on. Jameis Winston is the future for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Any hypothetical trades for Teddy Bridgewater aren’t in the organization’s plans.

It was silly, to begin with, but Jameis Winston shut down all the Teddy Bridgewater trade talk with his performance in the Buccaneers win over the Tennessee Titans on Saturday.

As Ryan Fitzpatrick hopelessly attempt to drive the offense in the second preseason game, Tampa Bay fans examined how different the offense could look under Winston.

Once Winston entered the game, the Tampa Bay offense found life. Winston was connecting on deep balls to Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson and drove the offense down the field on three consecutive scoring drives.

Winston ended his night with 226 yards, two TDs and a 151.4 QBR. Of course, it’s just the preseason, and it doesn’t mean the former number one overall pick has transformed into an MVP. However, he displayed why the front office has stuck with Winston through the recent rough patch.

Before the second preseason game, there was an outcry for the Buccaneers to trade for Bridgewater. During his two preseason outings with the New York Jets, the support for Bridgewater has only grown.

Why on Earth should the Bucs ship over a draft pick to New York for him right now, you might ask?

One argument is that he could fill in for Winston while he waits and could take over the starting role with strong play.

Well, this would entail Bridgewater learning Dirk Koetter’s offense in less than a month and outdueling Ben Roethlisberger, Drew Brees and Carson Wentz during the first three weeks of the season. Good luck with that.

The second argument is that Bridgewater is the player Tampa Bay should invest in, not Winston. While the suspension could be the reason the Bucs miss the playoffs this season, the incident happened in 2016. Since then, Winston hasn’t faced another problem.

If there’s belief that Bridgewater is better than Winston on the field, that observation was made up out of thin air.

The statistical comparison between him and Bridgewater doesn’t add up. Bridgewater’s best season saw him barely eclipse 3,200 passing yards and with an unimpressive 14 touchdowns and nine interceptions. Did I mention he basically hasn’t played in two years?

Plus, the Bucs front office is clearly behind Winston. If they didn’t believe in him, Bridgewater or another quarterback would have been at One Buc Place months ago.

At his best, Teddy is a mediocre quarterback with significant injury concerns. There is nothing Bridgewater brings to the table which helps Tampa Bay win football games.

The Bridgewater ship has sailed. Winston is the future of the Buccaneers.