The Jameis Winston experiment with the Saints has been nearly identical to the one that happened with the Buccaneers in many ways.
Jameis Winston is going to have a Hell of a legacy when he retires from the NFL. His story with the Buccaneers and Saints so far has been one that divides fans across both fanbases in a way that will be hard for anyone to ever replicate, and we shouldn’t expect that to change with his next stop either.
In Tampa, Winston had great games, bad games, and a bit of everything in-between. It seemed like every game furthered the agenda for one group or the other, and even his departure was celebrated by some and decried by others as the worst move the fanbase could ever make.
While the Bucs went on to win a Super Bowl, Winston landed with the Saints team that beat the Bucs twice in the regular season but lost in the playoffs to the eventual champs. In year two, Winston had a promising start before his season was ended due to injury.
Now, Winston has put together a mixed bag in large part due to a variety of injuries that understandably make the game harder to play, and the Saints fanbase (and coaching staff, apparently) is just as divided on Winston as the Buccaneers were a few years ago.
While the parts of the equation have been different, the sum has been the same; no one knows how to fairly evaluate Winston’s career. His supporters are some of the most ravenous and silly as any that have ever come in the history of the sport, but the detractors also make fools of themselves on a daily basis.
There seems to be no middle ground when it comes to how someone sees Winston, and after getting to see it with two very different teams, it seems like this isn’t going to change anytime soon.
Hopefully he can get healthy to give a fair evaluation for his next team, as the current situation behind Andy Dalton seems shaky at best.
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