TAMPA, Fla. — Bucs second-year safety Antoine Winfield Jr. said he meant no disrespect toward Jameis Winston with his “eating W’s” gesture shortly after Winston was injured during Tampa Bay’s recent loss to the Saints.
Fox cameras captured Winfield making the gesture — originated by Winston during his Tampa Bay tenure — following his end-zone interception of Trevor Siemian (negated by a roughing-the-passer penalty) midway through the second quarter. Winston had suffered a season-ending knee injury nine minutes earlier.
“I think a lot of people took that the wrong way,” Winfield told reporters Wednesday.
“It was something I talked about even leading up into practice that I was going to eat a ‘W,’ because I thought it would just be funny. But (Winston) ended up getting hurt, and then people were like, ‘Ah, he was doing that because (Winston) had just got hurt.’ But it wasn’t anything like that. No malicious intent behind it.”
Winfield wasn’t fined on the play but did incur a $7,850 fine from the NFL for making a mock peace gesture during the Super Bowl to Chiefs receiver Tyreek Hill, who had made the same gesture to Winfield in the teams’ regular season meeting.
In the case of the latest incident, Winfield said it was a form of self-expression to avoid a taunting fine.
“When you make a play, you get excited,” he said. “And it’s tough with the taunting rules and things like that, so you’ve kind of got to do it away from people, you’ve got to do it towards the camera. That’s the only way I know how to do it without getting fined or getting penalized.”
