All the euphoria over the glorious return of Jameis Winston during his giddy and maximalist Monday Night Football performance seemed to forget the helpless victims of Jameis Being Jameis—starting with the man who could lose his job because of it: Winston’s indulgent coach Kevin Stefanski.
It is true that Jameis is a singular entity in the insurance company world of the National Football League, from the way he enters games to what he does during them and on the postgame podium afterward. He has as much fun doing superoptimal things on a suboptimal team as any quarterback has since Bobby Layne quarterbacked the Detroit Lions and Pittsburgh Steelers while largely hung over throughout the 1950s. Plus, Layne didn't wear a facemask and still got to the Hall of Fame, and what's more fun than that?
But Stefanski is still the one holding Winston's Monday night stat line—34 completions in 58 throws, 497 passing yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions, including two pick-sixes—and his own, a 41-32 loss to Denver that left his Cleveland Browns 3-9 and neighbors with the hellspawn that is the New York Jets. How would you, the fair-minded neutral, view Stefanski’s mood today? How much fun was all this for him?
But that, too, is the Jameis Experience. You get lots of yards, lots of touchdowns, lots of interceptions, and, eventually, a new coach because the old one got canned for not winning enough. Jameis doesn't necessarily get the coach fired, though he's now working on his sixth in 10 NFL seasons. But it is inherent to the Jameis Experience that he doesn't do enough to keep his coaches from getting fired either. He's just The Experience.
No one is confusing him for a franchise quarterback anymore, not for years now. Winston is a backup, with expectations to match. And while he saved the Browns from the ignominy of Deshaun Watson's undisposable contract, he is still Jameis—a man with both the time and the need to pray to his god not to make him throw so many pick-sixes. It's not Winston’s fault that he has only had one winning season as a starter, and got hurt after seven games of that season, but it's not not his fault at the same time. He's just, well, Jameis. You can't hate him for being him any more than you can hate a bluebird for being blue. Or you can if you want, as long as you recognize that neither your approval nor lack thereof changes anything. Nothing about any of this is going to change.
In a way it seems unfair that the rest of the league doesn't get to enjoy this Aurora Borealis of WTF. The Jets would certainly be more fun with him than Aaron Rodgers; the Chiefs fans, who are dealing with their first non-ethereal season from Patrick Mahomes, could learn a bit more appreciation for their 11-1 record by having a few weeks of JBJ. From Antonio Pierce to Kevin O'Connell and all the Raheem Morrises and Shane Steichens along the way—they could all use some cheering up that only a sideline head smack can provide. Basically every team in the NFL would be no better and some quite possibly worse with Winston as its starting quarterback, but in wondrously comedic ways. And it is the season for merriment, right?
Since the Browns are unlikely to stay with him when they clean house yet again this coming offseason—that's the way it works when you're 3-9 and lucky to be even that good—he will likely come free again, which sparks an idea. Make Jameis a roving ambassador for the position, moving him from team to team from one week to the next. That way, every fan base gets a soupçon of the Jameis Experience, every wide receiver gets to know what a career day feels like, and so does every cornerback. And every coach gets to experience what football looks and feels like when the game plan is Oh, What The Hell.
The scheme is easy enough to block out. There are 18 weeks in a regular season, plus 17 Thursdays, allowing Jameis to be sent to every team at least once, with three game windows off to keep his arm fresh, his mind clear and his prayer book open. You think he couldn't break Mike Tomlin's faceplate? You think Kyle Shanahan wouldn't want him just once to give his wideouts a reason to go on? You think Brian Daboll wouldn't find Jameis Week a refreshing break from the yearslong mudslide that is the Giants quarterback position? You think Andy Reid wouldn’t give up one week of residual checks from that hateful Bundlerooski ad just to stand by and see what Mahomes might do if he’d been born without a conscience? You think Matt Eberflus wouldn't . . . well, no. That one's probably a bridge too far.
And they could all rest comfortably knowing that there wouldn't be the crushing need to win the Jameis game because, well, Jameis doesn't necessarily do that. Even his one shining postseason moment, a 56-yard touchdown pass to Tre'Quan Smith in the only playoff snap Winston ever took, came with New Orleans in a 30-20 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and their much more tedious, formulaic and fun-killing quarterback, T. Edward Patrick Brady. Jameis does everything but win, mind you, good and bad, and he does it with an apparent song in his heart. He'd be an absolute hoot in any broadcast booth, a bar which Brady seems incapable of clearing.
Sadly, this won't be allowed by the pack of turgid thinkers that rule the football business, and we shall have to hope for a team more desperate than Cleveland for Winston's next stop. We are sure there's one out there though; hell, the Jets could certainly use a little less of the energy they currently exude. Maybe he could become both Caleb Williams's quarterback coach and backup for Mike Vrabel next year—"Read the defense? Please, child. You don't read football, you play football. Go out there and play. There are a bunch of people out there, and they move too fast to keep track of all of them. Just throw it to one of them and hope you get lucky."
The game of football would surely be better off if more people had Winston's sense of whimsy. He may not plant you any flags and certainly won't raise any banners, but as the fans' quarterback, he will surely make you smile—unless that's actually a grimace. It’s a thin line of lips between one and the other.
