Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston has been suspended for the first three games of the season. Most stories have said that means Ryan Fitzpatrick will start Weeks 1-3, while Winston will start Week Four. That may not be the case.
Although the Buccaneers don’t appear ready to move on from Winston, as some in Tampa are calling on them to do, they might not be ready to go to Winston immediately when he returns, either.
There are a lot of reasons for that, starting with the basic facts of the Buccaneers’ schedule: The Bucs play on Monday night in Week Three, which means that after Winston starts his suspension at the conclusion of the preseason, he can’t return to the team until Tuesday, September 25. So the Bucs will be on a short work week heading into their Week Four game at Chicago on Sunday, September 30. Would the Bucs want to throw Winston in on a short work week, after three weeks off?
After that game against the Bears, the Buccaneers are on their bye week. So it might make more sense for them to play Fitzpatrick in Week Four, then give Winston time to get ready during the Week Five bye before he returns to the starting lineup in Week Six.
Of course, that assumes that Winston is going to return to the starting lineup at all. What if Fitzpatrick plays well and has the Buccaneers’ offense humming? Would the Bucs stick with the hot hand?
Ordinarily they wouldn’t: You don’t keep your 24-year-old former first overall pick on the bench in favor of a 35-year-old backup. But Winston’s contract makes the decision a little more difficult because Winston would be guaranteed a salary of $20.9 million in 2019 if he suffers a serious injury in 2018. If the Buccaneers aren’t absolutely certain they believe in Winston as the face of their franchise for years to come, they may decide it’s not worth the risk of putting him on the field and perhaps seeing him suffer an injury that would trigger that $20.9 million guarantee.
Although the circumstances were different, the thinking was the same in Washington in 2015, when Robert Griffin III was slated to be the starter, only to be demoted to third string and deactivated for the entire season. Once the team had decided Griffin was not its quarterback of the future, it couldn’t risk an injury that would trigger the enormous fifth-year injury guarantee that highly drafted players like Griffin (and Winston) have.
So while the most likely scenario remains that Winston returns to the Buccaneers and resumes his spot atop the depth chart in Week Four, that is by no means a guarantee. The Bucs may decide that they’re done with Winston.
