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
PlayerIntGGSCmpAttInt%
DeShone Kizer2418152755184.63
Ryan Fitzpatrick47443782313743.42
Blaine Gabbert2327214257143.22
Jameis Winston585654118319223.02
Trevor Siemian2426244958352.87
Jay Cutler30343465810492.86
Brock Osweiler31363068011352.73
Andrew Luck40383893814772.71
Blake Bortles586160128121572.69
Cam Newton536160117719682.69
Ben Roethlisberger595756145922142.66
Ryan Tannehill33404080012492.64
Marcus Mariota425655101516052.62
Philip Rivers566464149323222.41
Josh McCown2330276039642.39
Eli Manning546363149623632.29
Joe Flacco465151128620132.29
Carson Palmer32383887014012.28
Case Keenum34474496215142.25
Andy Dalton385656114218102.10
Jared Goff26383877212432.09
Kirk Cousins466464155722952.00
Carson Wentz28404092314481.93
Matthew Stafford446464152423061.91
Derek Carr426262141122011.91
Sam Bradford23343482312071.91
Matt Ryan426464154422851.84
Russell Wilson376464130120091.84
Dak Prescott25484897514751.69
Drew Brees396262164923251.68
Alex Smith255656118117921.40
Tom Brady286060145322071.27
Aaron Rodgers235555127420171.14

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