Dirk Koetter, Jason Licht sing Jameis Winston’s praises

Breaking news: the general manager and head coach of an NFL team say they really love their franchise quarterback. Shocking!

That was the message Dirk Koetter and Jason Licht spread at their NFL Scouting Combine talks. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers love their quarterback. He’s everything they expected, and they’re very happy with him as the face of their franchise.

Mostly, they were reacting to Winston’s sexist remarks last week. They said, as Winston did, that he just chose the wrong words — fairly standard PR deflection, and somewhat odd given that the controversy was over the content of the message rather than the form. But, ultimately, the Bucs say that he apologized, and it is now done as far as they’re concerned.

Leaving Koetter and Licht to get back to their message: Winston is awesome and will be leading this team for a very long time, and will do very well in that role.

None of that is surprising, of course. While Winston’s message was sexist, it certainly isn’t anything that gets quarterbacks into serious trouble. It helps that it’s really the only time he’s gotten into any kind of controversy since being drafted.

And while Winston’s play isn’t perfect, his trajectory since being drafted has been promising. He wasn’t quite the top ten quarterback the Bucs hoped he’d be last year, but there’s plenty of reason to believe he’ll continue to improve and get there sooner rather than later.

So yes, the Bucs love Jameis Winston, both on and off the field, and he’ll be here for a long time.