The inevitable low has followed the high. The unquestioned dip has followed the rise.
Jameis Winston was mortal again Saturday night.
Winston followed his arrival game against Cincinnati by plunging to his worst game with the Tampa Bay Bucs, a flat performance against the Cleveland Browns in a 31-7 walloping.
For Winston, this is life as a rookie. The highs may not last long. The lows, hopefully, will not either. But most rookies on insufficient teams struggle.
So, too, did Winston against a Cleveland Browns team that was only 7-9 a year ago and is playing with a Bucs’ castoff at quarterback.
“I never focus on that (if he took a step backward),” Winston said. “ I’m going to have to see the tape and stuff. My goal is always to get better every day, not step back. I’m never satisfied, so there are always ways for you can get better. No matter if you win or lose, you can always find a way to get better. This time, I got another thing to learn, from the blitz protection standpoint. I’ve got to see things and get us in the right protection call. This is definitely a learning experience.
“Obviously, they came up with a different game plan than we expected. We had to end up changing it to another formation.”
Winston took a stride backward in his development Monday night, sputtering for most of the night behind a leaky offensive line and a offense that couldn’t get it going against the 3-4 defense of the Cleveland Browns. Winston hit only six of 15 passes for 90 yards and a pick, and he took six sacks, and his rating was only 32.6, his lowest of the preseason. How bad is that? The Bucs were horrible last year, just horrible at the quarterback position. And they had only one game worse than a 32.6. That was Atlanta, and Mike Glennon finished that one up (after Josh McCown was injured) with a much higher quarterback rating.
“When they bring more than you can block, you’ve got to get it out,” Winston said. “And they did a couple of things where they picked our offensive guards where they couldn’t slide to get to the guys who were coming late. Like I said, it’s a learning experience. I know I’m not going to make that mistake again because I can’t get hit like that.”
Speaking of McCown, he turned into one of those players who always seems to make an impact on his return to town. McCown hit 17 of 23 passes for 117 yards and two touchdowns. And his rating of 113.9 was higher than it was for any game last year but one.
Part of the flat effort of the Bucs was probably their short week, coming on the heels of Monday night’s victory over Cincinnati. Tampa Bay seemed ill-prepared for the Browns from the start. On its first play, it had a one-yard run. On its second, it threw an incomplete pass. On its third, Winston was sacked for eight yards. Then it punted, Cleveland’s Travis Benjamin returned it 53 yards for a touchdown.
It was 7-0, Cleveland, and just like that, it felt like 2014 all over again.
It was 17-0 only 1:24 to go in the second quarter, and Tampa Bay was sort of looking around wondering what had happened to them.
Oh, the Bucs came back with a quick score – a 26-yard pass from Winston to Vincent Jackson and a 19-yard run by Doug Martin – and had a chance to get back in the game. But Winston threw two straight incompletions and Connor Barth missed a 43-yard field goal.
Winston played only one series in the second half – missing a pass and taking a sack – but the game was turned over to subs and, as a result, was essentially over.
