So much for Sean Payton’s poker face. The New Orleans Saints coach did not try to get the team’s desire to sign free agent Jameis Winston again when Drew Brees retires as expected.
Payton spoke glowingly about Winston to ESPN and other media on Wednesday while making a few Super Bowl appearances on Wednesday, saying the Saints want to re-sign him ‘sooner rather than later’.
Payton also specifically told CBS Sports Choose Six Podcast that he expects Brees ‘to make an announcement in the next week or two.’
Payton has been saying for months that he thinks the Saints’ next quarter is already “in the building” – a reference that includes both Winston and Taysom Hill. And he reiterated on Wednesday that the Saints have a “pretty good vision” for both players.
It was noteworthy that Payton first mentioned Winston and spoke in more detail about him when asked about the Saints’ future QB plans by ESPN’s Keyshawn, JWill & Zubin Show and by NFL Network’s “Good morning football‘show’ and said it was an ‘easy’ question.
However, Payton stressed that the reason he first mentioned Winston was because he is a free agent and Hill is under contract for another year.
“Jameis Winston, we know. We had a year with him. He was fantastic as a leader. He has tremendous talent. He is a young prospect that we like very much,” Payton said in his ESPN -look. “If you have a player for a season, he gives you a chance to see what he’s about, and there’s a little audition. But the same audition takes place for us. He’s got a chance to see, ‘Hey “That’s how they do it here. Does it suit me? Does it suit this head coach, this position coach? Is it a place where I feel comfortable playing?”
Payton told ‘Good Morning Football’: ‘Many times you want to keep your cards closer to the vest [with a] free agent. But he and Taysom Hill, we’re been saying this all along, we’re going to develop and coach those guys. And Jameis is one of the guys we’m very interested in. ‘
Winston, who just turned 27 in January, signed a one-year deal with the Saints last year for $ 1.1 million plus incentives because he wanted to learn specifically under Payton and Brees while trying to revive his career. He calls it “a Harvard training in quarterback school.”
Winston did not get much experience on the field because there was no preseason and Payton preferred to start Hill, while Brees was sidelined for four games through broken ribs and a punctured lung. However, Winston made his best game of the season when he completed a 56-pointer on a trick play in New Orleans’ playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Winston was 7-out-11 for 75 yards in the regular season, with no caps or turnover.
Hill, 30, went 3-1 in the four starting strokes, with a few highs and a few lows. But Payton explained that part of the reason he chose Hill over Winston was because Hill was in New Orleans in his fourth year – and Payton made a promise to Hill that he would get such an opportunity when he last year again as a limited free agent.
It appears that this year would be more of an open competition between Winston and Hill, if the Saints did not make any other big move on the position.
Of course, during his first five seasons with the Buccaneers, Winston showed his own abundance of highs and lows after being selected from the state of Florida with the no. 1st choice in the 2015 NFL draft. The 2013 Heisman Trophy winner led the NFL in 2019 in its first year under coach Bruce Arians with 5,109 passing yards. But he also became the first quarterback in league history to swing for at least 30 passes and 30 interceptions in the same season, leading to Tampa Bay moving to Tom Brady sooner.
Winston penetrated the Bucs 28-42 in his five seasons as a starter and completed 61.3% of his passes with 19,737 yards, 121 touchdowns and 88 interceptions. Turnover was his biggest problem, with a total of 111 in five years.