The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made yet another telling gesture on Monday morning when they placed the franchise tag on pass-rusher Shaq Barrett. The move said just as much about quarterback Jameis Winston as it did about Barrett. And Winston shouldn’t find it flattering.
Yes, Barrett is a productive player. And yes, he’s deserving of the tag. But if you have a quarterback — the quarterback — he gets the franchise tag, even if he doesn’t want it. The Buccaneers will be letting quarterback Jameis Winston enter free agency. It’s clear he is not a priority for Tampa Bay. There is a chance he will return to the team, but there’s a clear apathy toward whether that happens. It’s consistent with what coach Bruce Arians has said about the quarterback for months.
Let’s go back to the NFL combine, when Arians was brazenly tampering. He was asked whether he’d be interested in giving any free agent quarterbacks a ring. “Tom Brady,” Arians said, via The Athletic. “Philip [Rivers] is another guy. We’ll see.” It sends a message to Winston that he could quickly become the team’s third-best option. Apparently, Arians doesn’t care.
The coach has been consistently critical of Winston’s faults. Winston finished the season with a 60.7 completion percentage, 5,109 passing yards and 33 touchdowns. But he also finished with 30 interceptions with 12 fumbles (nine lost). That’s an ugly showing of turnovers. Arians seemed tired of it.
“If we can win with this [quarterback], we can definitely win with another one, too,” the Bucs head coach said during his end-of-season press conference.
In a fitting moment, the Buccaneers’ season ended in overtime when Winston threw a pick-six against the Atlanta Falcons. The game was over. The season was over. And perhaps Winston’s career in Tampa was over, too.
“It sure looked like [a bad decision],” he said. “[Cameron Brate] was covered. He’s throwing to his favorite guy but he’s covered. I think an overtime loss, giving the ball away for a touchdown. I can’t think of anything worse.”
That bad taste doesn’t seem to have worn off. The Buccaneers are clearly going to exhaust their options before they turn back to Winston.
