When Lovie Smith and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ coaches reviewed the film of quarterback Jameis Winston’s performance in a loss to the Carolina Panthers three weeks ago — one in which the rookie threw four interceptions — they chalked the mistakes up to a variety of factors, all related to Winston’s youth.
“You would like for him to be a 10-year veteran right away,” Smith said, “and that’s just not the case.”
As the Buccaneers venture through the season with Winston, the No. 1 overall pick in April, as their quarterback, they do so understanding that results are unlikely to arrive quickly. Through five games, the Buccaneers are 2-3, and Winston ranks in the bottom third of the league in nearly almost every major passing category, including yards, touchdowns, interceptions, completion percentage and passer rating.
Smith and his coaches have noticed incremental progress in Winston’s performance, especially off that loss to the Panthers. The following week, for the first time in his tenure, Winston finished a game without committing a turnover, aiding the Buccaneers in a victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars. The coaching staff, for its part, also demonstrated a willingness to adapt to its quarterback’s strengths, going without a huddle and increasing the tempo of play more frequently during the game.
Those signs may bode well for Winston’s longevity, but recent history has shown that rookie starters have a small shelf life in the NFL. There have been 147 quarterbacks drafted since 2003, including 105 who actually played in at least one game. Only 33 started six or more games as a rookie; of that group, only 14 quarterbacks, just under half of them, spent at least four seasons as a starter for the same team.
Of that group of rookie starters, only five — the New York Giants’ Eli Manning, the Baltimore Ravens’ Joe Flacco, the Cincinnati Bengals’ Andy Dalton, the Carolina Panthers’ Cam Newton and the Seattle Seahawks’ Russell Wilson — have played for the same coach their entire careers. Wilson, in his fourth season, is the only one to have the same offensive coordinator.
Specific reasons for such a lack of stability essentially boil down to one pattern: Teams installing a rookie quarterback are doing so because the previous starter struggled. And, because the previous starter struggled, a greater organizational change can loom. A subpar year by the rookie can lead to the firing of a general manager or coach, with their replacements finding their own quarterback.
Identifying a starter, and then developing him, is crucial, but it has been shown to be difficult. Players must be transcendent as rookies and must frequently adapt and grow despite changes in offensive philosophy.
The Washington Redskins, Tampa Bay’s opponent on Sunday, know that dilemma all too well. Robert Griffin III, the No. 2 overall pick in 2012, started 15 games that season, led his team to a division title for the first time in over a decade and was honored as the offensive rookie of the year. Three years later, Griffin, who struggled to adjust to new coach Jay Gruden’s system, has been benched for Kirk Cousins, a fourth-round pick in the same draft as Griffin who has faced his own issues.
“There’s a rhythm, a weekly rhythm, [to starting],” said Cousins, who has made spot starts during his career but is now, entering his seventh week, in the midst of his most extended workload since college. “You don’t feel the growth week in and week out, but when I look back now after seven weeks, I do feel like I’ve grown as a player. That’s encouraging. Seven more weeks from now, I think I’ll be even further down the road. Just keep working and keep going. Trust the process and let the results take care of themselves.”
Those results, though, can be derailed by outside factors. Colt McCoy, a third-round pick in 2010, started eight games that year for the Cleveland Browns, but they changed offensive systems before McCoy’s second season and then again before his third season, in which he was benched.
McCoy was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in 2013, then signed with the Redskins a year later. This season was the first in McCoy’s professional career in which he had the same offensive coordinator in consecutive seasons; although McCoy believes he had a moderately successful first year, evaluating and projecting a quarterback solely off his performance as a rookie, he said, is an exercise in caution.
“I don’t judge Blake Bortles from last year based off his rookie season,” McCoy said, referring to the Jaguars’ quarterback, a 13-game starter in 2014. “I’ll judge him this year because he’s in the same system and he’s got a little bit of experience from the year before, and I don’t want to see him make the same mistakes twice. It looks like he’s coming along. The same with Jameis — he’s going to make mistakes. He’s going to learn from them, and just kind of just keep climbing the ladder. Don’t fall off, basically.”
For Smith, signs of progress from Winston are, in some regards, more important than the results themselves. After the four-interception game, Winston “had his best game of the year that following weekend, so we can live with [that],” Smith said. Winston, according to the coach, acknowledged his mistakes against the Panthers and diagnosed them in meetings during the week.
“What I wanted to see is how he would react and how he would come back from a tough loss like that,” Smith said. “That’s a part of the process too — seeing how a young player comes back from tough circumstances.”
Winston and the Tennessee Titans’ Marcus Mariota, selected No. 2 in April, weren’t afforded the chance to sit out and figure out the professional game, given their teams’ recent lack of success. They must learn each day how to play and how to succeed, all while understanding the process.
“I’m well aware of it, and that’s why I’m blessed to be here and have coaches that push us so hard and help us meet that standard of getting better every single day,” Winston said, “because getting better every day doesn’t mean that you did something spectacular. It’s just focusing on some small little detail that you try to perfect either at practice or even in the game.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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