NFL Thursday: Jameis Winston Still Has a Job

We don’t do a lot of NFL Thursday entries these days, and we’d like to change that. However, we often do not have much to say. It’s been more than five months since our last column in this defined space. We’re going to look at another No. 1 overall draft pick whose career has not turned out the way some people expected: journeyman quarterback Jameis Winston. Now playing for his fourth professional football franchise, Winston actually is starting for the New York Giants against the Arizona Cardinals. Oh my!

He famously led the Florida State Seminoles to the last BCS Championship in 2013 before the advent of the four-team playoff, winning the Heisman Trophy vote in the process. But it’s possible that really was his “peak” … which sounds kind of sad, until you realize how wealthy he probably has become in the last 13-plus years. He finished just sixth in the 2014 Heisman voting as his QB efficiency went into the tank as a sophomore, but that did not stop the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from taking him atop the 2015 draft.

With the Bucs over five seasons (2015-2019), he posted just a 28-42 record as the starter, culminating in that infamous 2019 season where he tossed 33 touchdowns—and 30 interceptions, while also leading the NFL in attempts, yards, and first-down completions. This is why we so often crack Caitlin Clark jokes at his expense, of course. His 84.3 QB rating that season was middling among NFL passers, and the Tampa Bay organization decided to move on at that point, by hiring cheatin’ Tom Brady.

But we digress.

After starting 70 games for the Bucs, Winston could manage only a backup’s role in 2020 with the New Orleans Saints, where he tossed just 11 passes during the 2020 season as his former team went on to win the Super Bowl without him. Combined, Winston spent four seasons with the ‘Aints, starting just 10 games total and posting a 6-4 record there in his starts. He looked like a better, wiser QB at this point in his career, yet at age 30, he found himself starting seven games for the moribund Cleveland Browns.

That didn’t go so well, as his 2-5 record there meant he wasn’t going to stay long on the Erie. Winston joined the New York Giants in 2025, went 0-2 as a starter, and found himself backing up a much younger teammate to start this season. Alas, that younger teammate is now injured and out for the year, so Winston finds himself in the starter’s seat one more time … for now. How long he lasts there at age 32 will depend on how well he performs—and perhaps even how well the team does overall with its talent core.

Winston never reached the postseason with Tampa Bay, and his only career playoff action in the NFL came during the 2020 campaign with the Saints: a trick play that resulted in a 56-yard TD for New Orleans against the Bucs, temporarily giving Winston and his teammates a lead in the middle of the second quarter in a divisional game they eventually lost by coughing up 17 unanswered points to cheatin’ Brady and his offense. What the Giants get out of Winston now is anyone’s guess, including ours.

We say they shouldn’t count on much, and that’s just based on past precedent.

With a 37-53 overall record now, Winston’s career QB rating (85.9) is very average for the modern era, thanks to his low 60.9-percent completion rate and high 3.5-percent INT rate. Although he ran for over 1,000 yards in his years with Tampa Bay, he’s never been much of a threat with his legs. What he has left in the tank at his age now is experience, guile, and perhaps some wisdom acquired through the years playing for all the different franchises in many differing roles. He’s never been a great player.

He did make the Pro Bowl as a rookie in 2015, but that designation doesn’t mean anything anymore. He also finished second in the Offensive ROTY vote, but never again has he been mentioned in the same breath as “award winner” during his NFL career. Statistically, his best professional season came in 2021 with New Orleans when he posted a 5-2 record as a starter with a 102.8 QB rating. Alas, he was injured in that seventh start and missed the rest of the campaign, as the Saints finished 9-8 without him there.

And maybe that was bad luck for him to get injured at age 27 amid his best season, right in the wheelhouse of his peak potential, no less. Either way, he’s never been able to play at that level since, bouncing out of the Bayou and onto more Northeastern destinations. Like we said, we’re not expecting much from Winston, and the Giants already made a trade to bolster their QB corps for the rest of the season. For some reason, though, we do hope Winston does well; it would make for a good redemption narrative.