Adam Schefter is reporting that Jameis Winston has won the Saints starting quarterback job. This is not a surprise, but now it's fairly close to official. Running Sean Payton's offense, there's certainly Top-12 to 15 potential. But there's also potential for him to ultimately play his way out of the lineup.
Winston famously threw 30 interceptions in 2019, which was enough for Bruce Arians to decide he'd had enough. With that ugly number included, a table showing interceptions by quarterbacks since Winston entered the league not only slots him at the top, but he has 18 more interceptions over that time frame than all but one other quarterback (and that's without even starting last season).
But even if you set aside Winston's 30-interception season, and look only at Winston's previous four years in the league, he was still the league's most interception-prone quarterback. From 2015 to 2018, only Ben Roethlisberger threw more interceptions (59) than Winston (58). If you look at percentage of pass attempts that were intercepted those years, the only guys worse than Winston are the frequently benched Ryan Fitzpatrick and ... a lot of guys who are out of the league or only marginally in it. Again: this is even after removing Winston's worst season from the equation. (Search tools at pro-football-reference.com used for this table.) Table shows all quarterbacks with at least 20 interceptions in those four years.
| QB INTERCEPTION RATE (20-PLUS INTS), 2015-2018 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Int | G | GS | Cmp | Att | Int% |
| DeShone Kizer | 24 | 18 | 15 | 275 | 518 | 4.63 |
| Ryan Fitzpatrick | 47 | 44 | 37 | 823 | 1374 | 3.42 |
| Blaine Gabbert | 23 | 27 | 21 | 425 | 714 | 3.22 |
| Jameis Winston | 58 | 56 | 54 | 1183 | 1922 | 3.02 |
| Trevor Siemian | 24 | 26 | 24 | 495 | 835 | 2.87 |
| Jay Cutler | 30 | 34 | 34 | 658 | 1049 | 2.86 |
| Brock Osweiler | 31 | 36 | 30 | 680 | 1135 | 2.73 |
| Andrew Luck | 40 | 38 | 38 | 938 | 1477 | 2.71 |
| Blake Bortles | 58 | 61 | 60 | 1281 | 2157 | 2.69 |
| Cam Newton | 53 | 61 | 60 | 1177 | 1968 | 2.69 |
| Ben Roethlisberger | 59 | 57 | 56 | 1459 | 2214 | 2.66 |
| Ryan Tannehill | 33 | 40 | 40 | 800 | 1249 | 2.64 |
| Marcus Mariota | 42 | 56 | 55 | 1015 | 1605 | 2.62 |
| Philip Rivers | 56 | 64 | 64 | 1493 | 2322 | 2.41 |
| Josh McCown | 23 | 30 | 27 | 603 | 964 | 2.39 |
| Eli Manning | 54 | 63 | 63 | 1496 | 2363 | 2.29 |
| Joe Flacco | 46 | 51 | 51 | 1286 | 2013 | 2.29 |
| Carson Palmer | 32 | 38 | 38 | 870 | 1401 | 2.28 |
| Case Keenum | 34 | 47 | 44 | 962 | 1514 | 2.25 |
| Andy Dalton | 38 | 56 | 56 | 1142 | 1810 | 2.10 |
| Jared Goff | 26 | 38 | 38 | 772 | 1243 | 2.09 |
| Kirk Cousins | 46 | 64 | 64 | 1557 | 2295 | 2.00 |
| Carson Wentz | 28 | 40 | 40 | 923 | 1448 | 1.93 |
| Matthew Stafford | 44 | 64 | 64 | 1524 | 2306 | 1.91 |
| Derek Carr | 42 | 62 | 62 | 1411 | 2201 | 1.91 |
| Sam Bradford | 23 | 34 | 34 | 823 | 1207 | 1.91 |
| Matt Ryan | 42 | 64 | 64 | 1544 | 2285 | 1.84 |
| Russell Wilson | 37 | 64 | 64 | 1301 | 2009 | 1.84 |
| Dak Prescott | 25 | 48 | 48 | 975 | 1475 | 1.69 |
| Drew Brees | 39 | 62 | 62 | 1649 | 2325 | 1.68 |
| Alex Smith | 25 | 56 | 56 | 1181 | 1792 | 1.40 |
| Tom Brady | 28 | 60 | 60 | 1453 | 2207 | 1.27 |
| Aaron Rodgers | 23 | 55 | 55 | 1274 | 2017 | 1.14 |
I know: Winston had vision-correction surgery since then. And now he's working with Sean Payton, who will be able to steer the quarterback away from those kind of errant throws. But that doesn't mean he's not the same quarterback in terms of taking chances and forcing throws that might not be there.
I like the idea of drafting Winston as a 2nd quarterback. If he stays in the lineup (and if you're not penalized for turnovers), he should have some very good games, even factoring in the likelihood of Taysom Hill coming onto the field for at least some goal-line situations. And a definite plus for Marquez Callaway, at least based on the rapport they displayed the other night, and the other pass catchers. Including Alvin Kamara.
But counting on him as a fantasy starter and keeping the job all season? That I'm not as confident about. He needs to be drafted at a discount that keeps the risk of a benching in mind.
--Andy Richardson