Jameis Winston is set to hit free agency after this season, but if it was up to him, he’d stay in Cleveland for the foreseeable future.
“Of course,” said Winston when asked if he wanted to re-sign with the Browns, per the Morning Journal’s Jeff Schudel, explaining that he and his family had found a home in Cleveland.
“I’ve truly embraced this city. I love the hard nose, I love the beautiful trees three months out the year,” said Winston. “I’m grateful for the fans challenging me. I’m grateful for the fans lifting me up. I’m grateful for you all challenging me and lifting me up.”
Winston signed a fully-guaranteed one-year, $4MM with the Browns this past offseason to serve as Deshaun Watson‘s backup, though he had to fend off competition from Tyler Huntley and Dorian Thompson-Robinson. Cleveland is 2-2 in Winston’s four starts after starting the season 1-6, with the veteran quarterback injecting some life into their previously-anemic passing game.
Winston’s performance has also earned him the support of his teammates, including Nick Chubb and Jerry Jeudy.
“He has a huge impact,” said Chubb. “He loves football. That rubs off on all of us — the energy and passion he brings every day — and we appreciate that.”
Jeudy went a step further, saying that Winston is the “type of guy you just need around,” per Schudel.
The Browns will have to navigate Watson’s recovery from his season-ending Achilles tear as well as his fully-guaranteed contract this offseason. If Cleveland moves on from Watson – or if he’s not projected to be healthy when the 2025 season starts – they may search for common ground with Winston to retain the veteran quarterback for next year. However, his performance will allow him to demand more money this offseason, especially if he draws interest from other teams searching for a starting quarterback.
Jameis makes a ton of sense as a bridge option for the next year or two if they don’t love anyone in this draft class. (Or even if they do love one of them and just don’t want to feel the need to play him right away which is the type of measured, long-term move that I haven’t seen much of from them.)
A rookie would fit best into their cap situation but I’m sure they could figure out a way to keep him if that’s the route they want to go. It really isn’t a stretch to say that he’s the best option currently on their payroll.
There’s a first time for everything..
Well, he’s definitely more fun to watch than the other two guys who call themselves quarterbacks.
9 QB’s in NFL history have thrown for 5,000 yards.
Winston is one of them.
Not saying he’s great, but not sure why he’s treated as a journeyman fallback option, either.
Especially to a bum like Watson.
People give Brady all the credit for that successful Bucs run in his time there, but they forget that the team was only a game under .500 the year before with Jameis. Now, he was also the reason that they didn’t have a winning record, as he turned it over more than 30 times, but he clearly had big
good play ability in equal measure to his big bad play ability.
It truly was a flip of a coin which you were going to get, but the thing that can be certainly be said is that he wasn’t one of those career backups who couldn’t go out there and only produce a sniffle and an empty Gatorade bottle.
He deserves the starting job for another year so what he’s capable of. Deshaun needs to be traded
Literally no one is trading for Deshaun Watson
Not even the Department of Corrections…
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Cleveland’s not eating too many Ws these days, but they’ve had their fill of one that ends in “-atson’s salary”.
Once his contract ends up
In fairness, you did say “needs to be” and not “will be”.
I suppose there’s a hypothetical scenario where Cleveland eats the salary and trades him just to be rid of him, and some other team says, “Sure, if you’re paying…” Maybe Buzbee will take him on as a runner.
I’m not sure how many teams think that the horrible PR attached to a terrible QB is worth a roster spot even. I wouldn’t want Watson if Cleveland paid his salary and the starting left tackle’s too!
Yeah the contract is almost over anyway it never worked out. Who would take him though?
Much like his surname suggests, Jameis is addictive!
Is he truly giving a compliment here or just saying 9 months of the year it sucks and fans have been hard on me? I love the beautiful trees 3 months of the year? LOL!
“I love the beautiful trees three months out the year,” said Winston. “I’m grateful for the fans challenging me. I’m grateful for the fans lifting me up. I’m grateful for you all challenging me and lifting me up.””
Legit compliment if I had to guess. Gotta assume he’s only really been living in Cleveland for about 3 months at this point.