Buccaneers last 10 first-round draft picks, ranked from best to bust

5. QB Jameis Winston (2015)

As Tampa Bay was coming off a poor 2-14 season behind the play of Josh McCown and Mike Glennon under center, the Buccaneers were in need of drafting a quarterback with the first pick in the upcoming draft. Ultimately, Tampa Bay opted to take Winston from Florida State over Marcus Mariota from Oregon, and the results can be best described as a "mixed bag".

On one hand, Winston would go on to be the Buccaneers' starting quarterback for the next five seasons, and was a better option than McCown or Glennon were. In 72 games (70 starts) as a Buccaneer, Winston threw for 19,737 passing yards, 121 touchdowns and 88 interceptions on 61.3% completion percentage, while eclipsing 4,000 yards in three of five seasons.

With that said, Winston's inability to take care of the football cost Tampa Bay any real chance of contending in the competitive NFC South, with the Buccaneers failing to reach ten wins once and suffering nine or more losses in three seasons.

The best representation of this came in the 2019 season, when Winston completed 60.7 of his passes for 5,109 passing yards and a league-leading 33 touchdowns. To do so, Winston finished the year with a whopping 626 pass attempts and an NFL-record 30 interceptions, ending in a 7-9 campaign and third-place finish by Tampa Bay.

Compared to his predecessors under center and the similar trajectory of Mariota's career, Winston did a fine job overall. At the end of the day, taking a quarterback with the first overall pick in the draft should yield more than a "fine job", and ranks in this list as nothing more or less than fine.