After Taysom Hill started the Saints preseason opener, the team is making a change to their starting lineup. Jameis Winston will start Monday night’s game against the Jaguars, according to head coach Sean Payton (and via ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Twitter).
Payton has said throughout the preseason that the team will continue to rotate between Hill and Winston. In other words, we shouldn’t look too much into Winston’s start on Monday. More interesting will be how the team handles both quarterbacks throughout the exhibition; if one of the two players plays primarily with the starters, it could give us a clue into who will be starting Week 1.
As the Saints usher in the post-Drew Brees era, Hill and Winston are the two candidates to take the starting gig. Hill completed eight of his 12 passes for 81 yards and an interception during his start against the Ravens, while Winston completed seven of his 12 attempts for 96 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. The team is also rostering Ian Book, who also tossed an interception during the preseason opener.
The Saints still refuse to show their hand at the quarterback position. When asked if any of the players had the lead for the starting job, Payton refused to give any information.
“I’m not going to have weekly or daily updates,” Payton said (via Michael Davis Smith of ProFootballTalk.com). “These guys are both working hard.”
How long before the Saints ask Archie Manning to come in for a workout?
isn’t he still in high school?ik
Keep taysom as a utility guy, he’s not a real qb. Although winston throws a lot of picks, he at least has the arm talent to be an nfl starter
He really doesn’t. The media has repeated that narrative so many times, but most years, he threw about 12 to 15 picks while throwing 550 to 600 times. He was about on course as every other QB at that stage in their career like Manning, Elway, etc. The problem was that Tampa stunk in every other aspect when he was there because they never had a defense until probably the last month and a half he was there and didn’t win games. Dirk Koetter’s defenses were horrific. The only other time they finished average in that department, they went 9-7 with him at QB.
I agree. Especially with Payton as his head coach. They run an offense based on shorter passes, and they’re a good overall team, so Winston is not going to be asked to win them the game. He’s a perfectly capable QB that I think could thrive in this system.
Hill looked better than I thought he would last year, but Winston gives you more play-calling/route options.
I’ve said this to people. Go back and watch Tampa in 2019. The kicker cost them like two or three games. I know the last game the only reason they were in overtime is because of the kicker, and they point blank lost the Giant game because of the kicker missing like a 30 yarder. That’s 9-7 right there.
But there were other instances where their kicking game put them in a bad spot. Also, they got screwed in the Titan game from a block return late in the game. That’s 10-6. What were they last year, 11-5? Third scoring offense in 2020, third in 2019.
Everyone has thrown picks in Bruce Arians offense the first year except Brady: Manning, Palmer, etc., so it was kind of blown out of proportion that he threw so many when that defense was so bad for the first half of the year and Arians asks his QB to be so aggressive all of the time. Winston’s problem is more that when he throws them, he throws them in bunches. If Payton can stop that from happening more than anything, he’ll be fine. He was never the problem in Tampa. Just couldn’t overcome them.
Even Brady threw picks, but he wasn’t running the classic Arians offense. I think he was 22-11 in terms of touchdowns-picks after Tampa lost to New Orleans for the second time last year; they then got to wreck havoc on some really weak defenses to bring up Brady’s touchdowns. But before that, Brady had a good number of picks. The point of this is to say that Arians has never shied away from risks in his playbook, and if Brady can throw picks in it (even only running it partially), anyone will. Especially a turnover prone QB like Winston.
The only real clear cut strength that Winston undeniably has IS his arm talent. We can argue until the cows come home regarding his value in putting that together with the necessary patience or other mental aspects of playing the game, but the one thing he does not lack is throwing ability.
Of course, it’s hard for me to say definitively that his turnover issues were entirely due to his own failures-a horde of different offensive schemes and incredible instability in the organization (remember the Dirk Koetter-Lovie Smith power struggle?) make me wonder how Jameis would have turned out had he headed to a more stable team. Instability coupled with a hero mindset-which Winston had-and a dash of immaturity might have set a worse stage than he could have had elsewhere. Can Sean Payton fix that? I don’t know, I suppose we’ll see.
I would think that Payton is going to use the skill set of both of them. They each bring different games to the huddle, and I expect to see game plans tailored to both, and geared towards both. Saints FO/coaching staff is very underrated in this aspect, using/acquiring talent on hand.
Leadership Leaders don’t wear their hats backwards! No Winston in 2021-22