Hardcore Jameis Winston fans can’t be happy with Tampa front-office

The portion of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fanbase that wants Jameis Winston to be brought back can’t be happy with the front-office currently.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made it relatively clear during the 2020 offseason that Jameis Winston is just one of the options for filling the quarterback position.

The latest report coming out pertaining to Jameis Winston is that he is not the first option, though. The Tampa Bay Times’ Rick Stroud reported on Twitter that Winston is still very much in play with for the Buccaneers, but that he is not likely their first option.

Over the past couple of weeks, several other reports have surfaced pertaining to Tampa’s pursuit of a quarterback:

• The Athletic reported that the Bucs were “hot” on Teddy Bridgewater
• ESPN reported that the Bucs were willing to give Tom Brady control of the roster should he sign.
• Bleacher Report said that the Bridgewater rumors are ‘real’ and there’s legitimate interest from Tampa.

Though none of these reports mean anything in the grand scheme of things, you do have to think that Jameis Winston supporters have to be a little upset with the front-office, in particularly Jason Licht and Bruce Arians.

What do I mean?

If the Bucs were truly committed to bringing Winston back, Arians and Licht could’ve squashed all of those rumors really quickly at the NFL Combine. They didn’t have to come out and say that they were wanting to bring Winston back- as that would hurt leverage- but they could’ve shared comments like ‘we really like what we see out of Jameis Winston and believe he can be the guy moving forward’ or ‘we think Winston can correct those mistakes and improve.’

When asked about other free-agent quarterbacks, Arians could’ve denied the idea and given yet another push back to Winston.

But they aren’t doing that.

Instead, they are legitimately pursuing other quarterback options and that has to be driving the Winston supporters crazy. The Buccaneers want to drive his price down, yes, but there’s more to it than just creating leverage at this point.

The divide that is being created between the fanbase has to be growing between this portion of the fanbase and the front-office, especially as the franchise tag deadline looms large.