Jameis Winston already learning to look off safeties

Jameis Winston is getting better every game, and the proof was in his play on Monday night. His mechanical improvements were obvious, as both the coaches and Winston himself concluded, but his mental understanding of the game improved, too. Just ask Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick.

"He corrected a lot of the things we had seen on film," Kirkpatrick told ESPN. "He corrected a lot as far as his eyes, staring down the receiver. He did a great job of holding our safeties off."

This may seem like an elementary skill, but it's very rare in rookies -- and even many veterans struggle to do this consistently. Josh Freeman never quite got the hang of it, for instance, and players like Jay Cutler and Matt Stafford rely on their arm strength to overcome their failure to manipulate safeties.

@JoeGoodberry it's Winston scanning the field, keeping the safety in the middle and then finding his eventual target. pic.twitter.com/WER96rVCti

— Joe Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) August 26, 2015

That's far from the only time he did this. His overthrow of a wide-open Mike Evans down the field was aided by his holding the safety in place, and a big completion to Vincent Jackson over the middle was possible because he used his line of sight to widen the throwing window.

It's details like that that make Winston worthy of the number one pick, and give us hope that he'll turn into a true franchise quarterback.