Schefter talks with Jameis Winston on his podcast

Jameis Winston got to be a part of Adam Schefter’s podcast this past week and they touched on multiple Buccaneer and life related subjects. It was a refreshing take to hear from Winston who spotlighted a few items such as what Arians has brought to the team, why Winston himself wanted to be a quarterback and the practice mindset around turnovers.

When asked what it has been like to work with Bruce Arians, Winston was not short on excitement. “It’s been a blessing, really about the people he has around the quarterback position like Coach More, Coach Cristensen... like Byron Leftwhich who has played under Coach Arians. It’s so cool knowing the experience and the pedigree that they hold and going out there and competing every day.”

The Buccaneers’ quarterback touched on what it’s like going into this season knowing it’s the final year on his contact. Winston went on to say he tries to play every game like it’s his last.

“Growing up I always wanted to be a professional quarterback,” said Winston. “Having a year where you know, nothing is guaranteed... it’s solely up to me to go out there and perform and win some football games. It just gives you that extra drive and sense of urgency to be your best.”

Schefter continued on and asked Winston why he ultimately chose the quarterback position.

“I just wanted to be the person to touch the ball all the time. I didn’t want to sit back and watch everybody else touch the ball, I wanted to touch the ball every play and have some type of leadership to just lead the pack,” Winston said.

Continuing to touch on the positional choice, Schefter asked what the hardest part of the job is.

“The toughest part of my job is just competing against myself every single day. I try to consider myself as a perfectionist so I want to be perfect every single time and sometimes that leads to trying to over do something. That’s why I’m learning that sometimes you just have to take a second, got to throw the ball away, take the check down but I’m consistently trying to compete against myself to you know go thru the progressions and complete this pass. I want everything to be perfect but it’s football, not everything is going to be perfect.”

Winston was asked about how this current staff is helping with his turnovers.

“I think BA helps me get past that everyday. He lets you know that ‘It’s okay, we’ll take that one.’ If the defense gets to me he’ll say ‘Oh okay, we’ll punt to them, now it’s our defenses turn.’ Just that affirmation coming from him and from Byron is really good.”

Schefter went on to ask about the first day of mini-camp.

“Not trying to bring up a bad subject, but didn’t you throw three picks on the first day of mini-camp?... I bring it up because last year we heard a lot about Patrick Mahomes throwing a lot of picks and sometimes it doesn’t matter.”

Schefter alluded that mini-camp and the off-season is a good place to take risks and test things out as well as brought up the interceptions he threw during Tampa Bay’s minicamp practices saying that Winston threw three.

“Nah, you heard wrong. I didn’t throw three, I threw two.” Jameis gave a subtle laugh. “It’s all in learning the scheme and I’m out there taking chances at practice. I want to go thru my reads and I want to be in the right place but when it’s time to take a chance I’m going to take it.”

In all, the podcast gave a refreshing sense of Jameis Winston being at ease with where things are in his life right now as it pertains to the Buccaneers. Winston sounds like he has confidence in himself and in this staff. That confidence will potentially prove to be everything in what is ultimately a make or break season for Winston.