Jameis Winston, Quarterback, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1st Round, 1st Pick)
Winston was the consensus No. 1 quarterback in the draft, so it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that Tampa Bay exhausted the top pick on him. While nowhere near the sure-fire prospect that Andrew Luck was back in 2012, Winston is likely the best college quarterback prospect to enter the NFL since the Indianapolis Colts signal caller.
He's also going to a situation in Tampa Bay that's set up for first-year success. The Buccaneers have a tremendous amount of talent to surround him with.
College Career
Stats: 66.0 Completion, 7,964 Passing Yards, 72 Total Touchdowns and 28 Interceptions
Replacing EJ Manuel as the Seminoles starting quarterback in 2013, Winston put up one of the best first-season performances for a quarterback in recent ACC history. He combined for nearly 4,300 total yards with 44 touchdowns and just 10 interceptions. One of the primary reasons that Tampa Bay selected Winston No. 1 overall was his grace under pressure at Florida State. That came front and center in 2013, as Winston combined for 18 touchdowns and just four interceptions in five road starts that year. He completed an amazing first season in Tallahassee by leading Florida State to a win against Auburn in the BCS National Championship game. For all intents and purposes, it was a storybook campaign for Winston.
This past season saw Winston struggle a bit more. He threw only 25 touchdowns compared to 18 interceptions in what was a mistake-prone campaign. Five of Winston's 13 outings ended with multiple interceptions, including a combined seven against Lousiville and Florida. With these mistakes came a larger microscope under Winston. His decision-making skills lacked big time as the 2014 season came calling. Needess to say, that's something the young quarterback will have to fix moving forward.
Competition
Now that Tampa Bay has released Josh McCown, Winston's top competition for the starting gig will be Mike Glennon. Heck, Glennon is Winston's only competition. Glennon wasn't terrible before Lovie Smith and company benched him in favor of McCown. He put up over 1,400 yards with 10 touchdowns and six interceptions in six games. Unfortunately for Glennon and the Buccaneers, they lost four of his five starts. No matter what we might think of Glennon from outside the bubble, it's rather apparent Tampa isn't going to give him a real shot to win the job here. Winston will be the Week 1 starter.
2015 Outlook
Despite substandard quarterback play, Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson combined for 138 receptions, 2,053 yards and 14 touchdowns last season. With a quarterback in Winston that has the arm strength to get the ball to the outside and down the field, there's no reason to believe those numbers won't be duplicated in 2015.
However, the expectation here has to be that Tampa Bay will do what it can to keep Winston from throwing the ball too much in 2015. Instead, we can expect him to be tasked with managing the game without having to toss it up 40-plus times. That's obviously dependent on the Buccaneers defense affording its offense the ability to do this, something that's far from a foregone conclusion. A good comp as a rookie might be what Blake Bortles did last year with Jacksonville, though there's more upside here. I can easily envision a scenario where Winston tallied 4,000-plus passing yards and 25-plus total touchdowns. With that, of course, will come 20-plus interceptions. It will pretty much be a boom-or-bust proposition. Winston is a solid middle-tier QB2 option and bye week replacement. If you go late round with your QB1, maybe nab Winston a tad later and play the matchups. We know the NFC South still leaves a lot to be desired from a defensive standpoint.
Dynasty Outlook
The outlook here is tremendous. Winston has that young No. 1 receiver already built in with Evans. He also has a solid young running back in Charles Sims and another running back in Doug Martin who could find himself rebounding from a couple down seasons.
Tampa Bay did a solid job adding young offensive line talent to go with Winston. Guard Ali Marpet is going to be a tremendous asset down the road, as will offensive tackle Donovan Smith, who could actually start at left tackle out of the gate. Finding the right mix along this unit will be huge for Winston's on-field success moving forward. As it is, look for Winston to end up being a top-seven fantasy quarterback within three years.