NFL Draft Rumors: Buccaneers to take Marcus Mariota or trade down

Until this weekend, the extremely strong consensus view was that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would take Jameis Winston with the number one overall pick. Then, Ron Jaworski said his sources claim the Bucs are planning to take Marcus Mariota. And now Joe Bussell, who used to work for the Buccaneers as their operations coordinator and runs the @NFLosophy twitter account, says the same thing.

The Bucs plan on drafting Marcus Mariota if they can't find a suitable option to trade down.

— NFL Philosophy (@NFLosophy) April 13, 2015

I don't break news. I don't take this lightly. This is not what I think they should do. If you think I'm trolling for clicks, I'm not.

— NFL Philosophy (@NFLosophy) April 13, 2015

I'm not sure why this is happening, exactly -- or whether this is even happening, as most local beat writers still seem convinced that Winston will be the pick. There's a very strong on-field argument to make in favor of Winston, although he's not spotless there. There's also a strong off-field argument to make in favor of Mariota.

Trading down would be the worst option, regardless. Both Mariota and Winston are capable players who can turn into franchise quarterback. The Bucs won't get another chance to draft someone like them any time soon, and they definitely need a quarterback.

The confusing thing is that the Bucs really have no reason to obscure their intentions if they do plan on taking Winston. Except to screw with everyone, I guess, or out of habit. So where are these reports coming from, and why?