Buccaneers: Call him Harvey Dent; Jameis Winston is two-faced

Hot and cold, the Buccaneers do not know what version of their quarterback Jameis Winston they will get on a week-to-week basis.

Flip a coin; which Jameis Winston are the Tampa Bay Buccaneers going to get under center on any given Sunday? Just like the Batman villain Two-Face, also known as Harvey Dent, the odds of any given outcome seem to come down to a flip of a coin for Winston.

Through six games this season, we have seen two awful outings, two excellent performances, and two conservative approaches. This form of inconsistency has followed Winston throughout the first four years of his career with the pewter and red, and is continuing into the last year of his career.

Winston, after being taken with the first overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft, has started 62 games for the Buccaneers. Throughout those appearances, the Florida State product has thrown 68 interceptions; this is the most of any quarterback in that span. He has also, however, thrown for over 16,000 career yards and 100 touchdowns in his career in Tampa.

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It is no wonder that Winston is so hotly contested by the Buccaneer fan base as the arm talent is clearly apparent, but so is the tendency to make boneheaded plays. However, now in his fifth year, the act is getting old for the Bucs as he shows flashes of both brilliance and backup material.

Just as Harvey Dent did to Batman in The Dark Knight, Winston will begin to lead you in what you think is the right direction, just to realize you have been separated from the truth all together. Separated from the love of your life, a Buccaneers’ win, who is tied up in a gasoline filled warehouse, you lay hopeless.

Two weeks ago, Winston was on pace with Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott for the top quarterback in the NFC. Then against the Saints he needed garbage time to get over 200 yards passing on the day, followed by a five interception performance overseas in London.

While remaining tied for third in passing touchdowns and fifth in passing yards, Winston is also second in interceptions and fifth from the bottom in completion percentage. This has been the theme throughout his career, hot and cold on a weekly basis, leading to Winston finishing as an average quarterback year after year..

Even in Winston’s best season as a Buc in 2016, where he threw for a career high 4,090 yards and 28 touchdowns, he still finished as the 16th best quarterback in the league in DVOA (an analysis that measures a player’s efficiency against the league average). Last year, Winston finished 16th in the same metric, and this year he falls as the 22nd best quarterback in the league.

What makes the fact that Winston is currently 22nd in the league in DVOA this season even weirder, is that he was in the top 10 in the same metric two weeks ago. Expect Winston to climb back up in the rankings this season, just to fall back down, then even out around the middle of the pack just as he has done every other year of his career.

If you were to graph Winston’s highs and lows, grab each end of that graph and pull, then the result would be an average baseline. In the same ranks as Andy Dalton and Joe Flacco, Winston is an average NFL quarterback. The problem now lies in the hands of the Buccaneers as Winston is heading towards free agency.

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Through the first two years of his career, it looked like Winston was a keeper for the Bucs. However, as the infamous line of Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight goes, “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

The Buccaneers have a decision to make, do they re-sign Winston and get three plus years of the same outcome, or do they let him die as the franchise leader in passing yards and a confusing legacy?

Flip a coin.

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