Buccaneers’ Jameis Winston largely struggles but flashes in preseason debut

MINNEAPOLIS — True to the reputation he forged during the 2014 college season, all Jameis Winston needed to get going in his professional debut was a 20-point deficit.

The No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft endured a roller coaster first game for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — one that was roundly poor but at least finished on a high note. He struggled in his first two series, admitting he came out “very anxious,” rallied with a nice drive, fell back badly his next three series but capped off his night — against the Minnesota Vikings’ second-team defense, mind you — with a long silver-lining touchdown drive.

“It was preseason, so it was kind of low-intensity,” Winston said, “but it was good to get one under your belt.”

Winston, who played the entire first half, started out 2-for-9 passing but finished completing 9 of 18 passes for 131 yards with one interception. He also rushed four times, often under heavy pressure, for 18 yards and a touchdown.

Buccaneers head coach Lovie Smith called Winston’s effort “a typical Jameis Winston performance,” without making it clear if that was a good or a bad thing.

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“I thought, starting off, Jameis did some typical things a rookie would do,” Smith said. “Things didn’t go exactly how we wanted it to early on. But he settled down and did some good things there at the end, threw some good balls.”

Backed up on their own 5, the Buccaneers opened with four run plays before Winston let his first pro pass rip: a forced toss into double coverage, incomplete to Austin Seferian-Jenkins on third down. On the Bucs’ second series, Winston threw behind an open Mike Evans, who had beaten cornerback Terence Newman, and then misfired under pressure on third down for another punt.

The Bucs’ third series teased Winston’s top-pick ability. After a sack and a scramble set up a third-and-14, Winston dialed up a gorgeous deep ball to Vincent Jackson, who hauled in a pretty catch for 40 yards. Winston then hit Louis Murphy (signed four days ago), his most effective target of the night, for 11 yards on a play-action rollout. Although Winston forced a tough ball into Jackson on third-and-goal, the Bucs came away with a field goal to cut the Vikings’ lead to 9-3.

“After the first couple of drives, he came in the huddle and said, ‘We can’t have all these third-and-longs, so that settled us down and we drove down the field and scored,” Evans said.

“He was very poised, very confident,” Murphy said. “He commanded the offense, and I didn’t expect anything less.”

Then the wheels came off for a bit. The next three series ended in an interception, a sack and a scramble that saw Winston fail to slide and get hit on the helmet — with no call — by Vikings rookie cornerback Trae Waynes.

Asked if he implored Winston to consider sliding more, Smith said: “Everything he did wrong, we will correct it and hopefully he won’t do it the next time. We haven’t gone over a whole lot of slides for him, but that’s the next step.”

Winston threw an ill-advised pass on the interception, trying to throw open Mike Evans (who was held — no call there, either), but the pass was too far out in front and was intercepted by safety Antone Exum Jr.

Winston said it was not his job to say whether he thought Evans was interfered with.

“My job is to protect the football,” Winston said. “I threw it to that guy. So we just have to get better.”

The Bucs’ offensive line did Winston no favors. Rookie left tackle Donovan Smith was whipped badly for a sack on the third series, and Winston and center Garrett Gilkey looked to be having trouble with the snap exchange and the cadence on the sixth series.

“We couldn’t hear the snap count, and we came into the game and weren’t going to do any silent [counts],” Gilkey told Shutdown Corner. “It’s our job as an offensive line to tell Jameis that we needed to do silent, and that’s my responsibility — I didn’t do that. So that’s just poor, and we just need to recognize quicker we need to do that.”

But Jackson said he believes Winston is making the proper steps to be great in time.

“I have so much confidence in this kid,” Jackson said. “I think he’s going to have a great year. He’s just so smart. He’s picked up everything fast and he sees things on the field that a veteran sees. It’s a lot of fun playing with him.

“He’s an aggressive guy, he wants to stand there in the pocket. You can see he’s not scared to stand in there and deliver the ball down the field, and that’s going to help us this year.”

Down 23-3, it appeared Winston’s night might be over. But Smith said the plan was to play Winston for a half, and it proved wise. As the Buccaneers went up-tempo, Winston strung together four straight completions, including a pretty deep out to Murphy — the kind of throw Winston routinely made as a national champion in 2013 and as a comeback artist last season at Florida State.

It’s clear, based on the pre-snap checks Winston made early in the game against the Vikings’ first-team defense, that the Bucs have put a lot on his plate. 

“Yes, that’s the type of player he is,” Smith said. “He’s thrown good passes through camp. He’s going to throw an awful lot for us this year. You have to have a first game, you have to work through some of those things, and that’s what he’s doing.”

Winston capped the drive with an 8-yard TD scramble, diving into the end zone and showing no regard for his health, narrowly missing getting clocked by Vikings corner Jabari Price. The two-point pass was low and wide of his mark, intended for Russell Shepard.

Winston said the up-tempo offense helped spark the offense and sounded like a man who wanted the coaches to speed things up sooner in the future.

“We are good at playing fast,” Winston said. “When we went up tempo, everything started rolling, everything started going downhill. Offensive line did great, everyone around me did great. When we pick up the intensity, we see what we are capable of.”

In his final heave of the night, Winston sent a Hail Mary that fell incomplete with the Bucs down 23-9.

Like Marcus Mariota’s debut on Friday night with the Tennessee Titans, there was enough from Winston’s debut to see why he was the top pick in the draft, but there also were enough struggles to wonder how his rookie season will play out.

Winston’s college debut came in an NFL stadium (Heinz Field against Pitt in 2013), and he started out hot, completing his first 11 passes. His pro debut came in a college stadium and was just the opposite, hitting on only two of his first nine throws. But luckily for Winston and the Buccaneers, there’s a long way to go before the games matter. 

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm