FanPost

Why Famous Jameis Has 17 interceptions and 21 touchdowns


With Combine Season just around the corner, when every NFL prospect is totally trashed by unspecified sources, some of the them NFL executives working to drive a player into a lower round where he can be had more cheaply, we are already hearing that Jameis Winston cannot play in the NFL because he "leads in the nation" in interceptions. There may be legitimate reasons why Winston will struggle in the NFL but his interceptions are not one of them. In any case let us remember what it takes to succeed in the NFL and then discuss some reasons why Winston has 17 interceptions.

First, you need accuracy, field vision, leadership, arm strength, and at least enough mobility to slip out of the pocket to succeed in the NFL.

Winston's completion percentage, despite an offensive line that is much better at run blocking, mostly a new receiving corps than a year ago, and some elite defenses, is 65.1 percent, in that high range between 65 to 70 percent where you will see the top passers in any class. In comparison, Marcus Mariota is 68.3, Cody Kessler of USC is 70.7, Brandon Doughty of Western Kentucky is 67.5, and Shane Carden of East Carolina is 65.0. In contrast, a recent NFL bust, Blaine Gabbert of Missouri, completed 54 percent of his passes before going in the first round to the Jaguars.

When it comes to leadership, Winston is right up there with recent stars such as Tim Tebow and Johnny Manziel and Russell Wilson. Winston runs around 4.8 in the 40, way below Mariota's 4.5, but its a lot faster than Kessler who runs around a 5.0 40. So he has enough mobility and due to his frame, around the same weight as Tebow, only taller, he can run enough to get out of a trouble and make first downs, and he has a canny ability to do it with the game on the line. Field vision is partly biological and genetic, basically wide vision. Winston has a wide forehead where his eye sockets are unusually far apart, similar to Joe Montana's, whose were also quite deep.

Jameis Winston's greatest flaw is arm strength. Mind you, he does not have a weak arm, it is just not a rocket launcher such as Mike Glennon of North Carolina State two years ago or Tom Savage of Pitt last year. In my judgement the two strongest arms of those most likely to go pro this spring are Kessler and Doughty of Western Kentucky. By the way, you should hear a lot more about Doughty as the Combine arrives in February.

Probably the lack of arm strength accounts for most interceptions in the NFL since you have to fit balls into the proverbial "small window" and pass interference does not exist for all practical purposes. Therefore we'll account for arm strength as the reason when Winston was picked off 3 times by Louisville's All American safety Gerod Holliman. In fact almost 20 percent of Holliman's nation leading 14 picks came off of Winston.

As I've mentioned in several posts, Winston is a far from polished NFL prospect and his throwing mechanics, particularly foot work, need a lot more work. But let's remember he is also only in his second season in college. This has resulted in hurried throws and interceptions.

On occasion, particularly against clever, sophisticated defenses such as Louisville, Virginia, Miami, and Florida, Winston has been suckered into throws into what looked like open spaces only to find the interceptor sneaking into the space. Part of that is the perfect storm of Florida State playing an unusually high number of teams coming off bye weeks and having extra time to scheme him.

As alluded to above, Florida's State's offensive line has proved to be vastly overrated, particularly in pass protection. Therefore an offense totally dependent on Winston has been slow to develop and only recently have his freshman receivers started to produce. Because of this Winston has had to improvise and improvision leads to both big plays and big mistakes. And clearly at some point in the season Winston, or Coach Jimbo Fisher, realized that Winston was going to have to take the team on his back and statistics such as interceptions would have to be ignored in favor of just win baby win, keep throwing no matter what the result. Of course, only a quarterback with the luxury of Florida's State's sensational defense could pull that off, and so that's what he has done.

Finally, despite Winston's remarkable ability to compartmentalize, he has played every single game of his college career (including today's ACC championship game) under the threat of either criminal prosecution or expulsion from Florida State for violating the school's code of conduct. Without taking sides on the remaining conduct issues, he was cleared of criminal wrong doing earlier this year, I think it is fair to say that Jameis Winston has performed under a level of personal stress that no college football player has ever endured. And with his accuser likely to sue him civilly, Winston could be tied up with litigation well into his professional career. Many believed it was this kind of stress that killed Jackie Robinson.



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