by Kadeem Simmonds
at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

If you’re the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, do you keep quarterback Jameis Winston beyond the 2019 season?

The former first overall pick has not developed the way the Bucs would have hoped when they took him ahead of Marcus Mariota in 2015.

And even the acquisition of quarterback guru Bruce Arians as head coach over the off-season has not been enough to help Winston take the leap into a dependable NFL starter.

The first half alone against the Carolina Panthers in London on Sunday saw Winston throw an interception on the first play of the game, throw another one in the second quarter and then on back-to-back plays fumble the ball with the team in the red zone, the second fumble was recovered by the Panthers.

The Panthers ran out 37-26 winners in the second game of the 2019 International Series and Arians cut an exacerbated figure on the sideline, lost at what to do next with the 25-year-old and admitted he told Winston to stop trying to be “Superman.”

He said he told the quarterback: “No, throw the damn ball away. Right, you avoided one, you might have avoided two. You ain't throwing it anywhere to a receiver. Throw it away. 

“He has a habit of trying to be Superman, and that's been a problem in the past. The fumbles haven't occurred this year until today, but again, trying to make something out of nothing, and it's just a matter of knowing when to quit on a play.”

The Superman complex is one that no Bucs coach has been able to solve, this propensity to hold on to the ball for too long, leading to drive-killing sacks, and inability to look after the ball when throwing bone-headed interceptions — it’s what led to draft scouts questioning whether he had the required tools to be a franchise quarterback at the next level.

Winston himself was brutally honest when it came to analysing his own play, which resulted in a career high five interceptions on the day.

Eighty-four giveaways since his entry to the league in 2015, now Rams back-up QB Blake Bortles is second with 76, are not the numbers you want associated to the face of your franchise.

By the end of the game it was 86 and the former Florida State QB pulled no punches on his performance on the Tottenham Hotspur field.

“You just can't do it. You can't do it. I've got to throw that ball away. Got to get some points right there,” he said when asked about the back-to-back fumbles in scoring position.

“I have to focus on myself and do what's best for this team, and that's protecting the football and giving us a chance to win. We all will come together.

“We all can watch things on film to see how we can get better, but my goal, my main role as the quarterback, is to put this team in a position to win and I did not do that today.”

For a few weeks, it looked like Winston had turned the corner and taken the necessary steps to rid himself of the so-called “Superman” complex.

Arians himself said he now knows what the “Jameis Winston experience is.”

“I see the preparation. I see what he's trying to do. You know, the
fumbles, we have to get rid of those. We have to start throwing balls away, and we don't need to take those sacks. 

“You don't take those hits, either. Just the interceptions — I have to go look back at the film where the ball was going, how it got there. I know the one his arm was hit. 

“The last one is just a prayer. The throw to Mike, Mike didn't see it in time. But yeah, we'll evaluate that.”

But from the first play of the game, an interception thrown when targeting Mike Evans, down to his last, an interception thrown when targeting Mike Evans, it just wasn’t Winston’s day and the fear is now that No 3 is back to his worst — something which he refutes.

“It was just a bad game. You know, they're not back where they were. I just keep on playing, keep on getting better and come back to work for when we play against the Tennessee Titans and be better. 

“That's all. You just can't turn the football over and win football games in this league, and I know that. So that's it.”

Houston Texans QB Deshaun Watson spoke a few weeks ago about how difficult this Panthers defence are to beat and when asked by the Star what makes it so complex, Winston replied that it’s actually the opposite.

“They just play simple defence. We done seen it — I've seen it for five years now. They do a good job playing it. I can't give them the ball. That's how they win games. 

“If you look at their last four wins, they win the turnover battle. Unfortunately, we don't get to play them again, for right now, but that's how they win games. Their defence gets turnovers. I can't be the one to give them the ball.”

While he did throw his 100th career touchdown in the fourth quarter, chances of him reaching 200, especially in the red of the Bucs, seem extremely unlikely.

Unsurprisingly, when asked where he will be playing his football in 2020, Winston said he was focusing on next week.

“I see myself for the next game continuing to play the best I can possibly play. I'm not looking to the future. I'm not looking to the past. I have today, and I have next week is a bye week, so it's going to be good to get in the books and work hard. Today was not a good day, but there will be better days.”

One thing that cannot be denied his Winston’s leadership skills, he owned up to his abysmal play behind the line of scrimmage and shot down any suggestions that the poor offensive play fell on the shoulders of wide receiver Mike Evans.

“No, it's not on Mike. At the end of the day, I throw the football, I get the interceptions. We've got to win games. When I do that, it's tough for us to win games. 

“Mike is one of the best receivers in this league. It's OK for some people to have a bad day. I don't think he had a bad day, but as the quarterback, you can't have a bad day, and that's just the business because if a quarterback has a bad day, then things are escalated, and we lose the game.”