Doug Farrar over at Touchdown Wire listed the worst vertical passers in the NFL today, and one New Orleans Saints quarterback made the list: but it isn’t Drew Brees, who placed among the lowest-ranked passers in that category by Pro Football Focus.
Instead, Farrar took aim at one of Brees’ backups. Jameis Winston ended up catching flak for his performance last season. Farrar wrote of the former first-overall draft pick and Saints third-string quarterback:
Per Sports Info Solutions, Winston was both great and terrible on throws requiring a deep ball (seam, go, fade, post, etc,) with 164 attempts, 76 completions, 1,859 yards, 1,464 air yards, and 19 touchdowns. All of those totals led the league last year. Unfortunately, Winston’s nine interceptions on such passes also tied for second-worst in the league with Philip Rivers, who we’ll get to in a moment.
We’ll see if Winston can improve in New Orleans, but he clearly has a lot of work ahead of him. Working with coaches like Sean Payton and Joe Lombardi, with Brees providing a good model to imitate, should do him plenty of good.
