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Before this year’s college football season started, ESPN’s Mel Kiper had Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston at the top of his 2015 draft board: first among QBs and first overall. His skills are undeniable. Winston has great size (6-4, 230), incredible arm strength, and off-the-charts athleticism. Many draft gurus would tell you that he is a lock for the first round and has the talent to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.
But in addition to being an elite football player at Florida State, the 2013 Heiseman Trophy winner is also a member of the Seminoles baseball team. Winston was a preseason third-team All-American this year and played in 24 games in 2014 for FSU as an outfielder and designated hitter. He excelled as a relief pitcher in 24 appearances, finishing the season 1-0 with a 1.08 ERA and 31 strikeouts in 33.1 innings. Opponents hit just .154 against Winston and he allowed four earned runs, seven walks and 18 hits all year.
The two-sport star has also been disciplined by each of the teams he plays for this year.
He was suspended from the baseball team in April for stealing crab legs from a Publix supermarket. Here’s video of him walking out of the store with $32 worth of the deadliest catch.
Here he is throwing gas and doing other awesome things on the baseball field as a freshman:
Winston, a highly touted high school baseball player, was selected in the 15th round by the Texas Rangers in 2012. According to the Dallas Morning News, Texas is not opposed to him following in the footsteps of Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson to become a two-sport star.
Here’s what Rangers assistant general manager A.J. Preller told the Dallas Morning News:
“Our scouts raved about his personality and the winning feeling he has. Jameis is the kind of guy that whatever he wants to do, run for political office or play pro baseball or whatever, he’s going to do.”
Bo Jackson, the legendary two-sport star who won the Heisman Trophy in 1985 at Auburn and later played in the majors, is not impressed with Winston’s off-field antics. Jackson was critical of Winston in an appearance on the “Jim Rome Show” this week.
Here’s what Bo knows:
“I really don’t know who is giving this young man guidance. I have communicated with him, and I just talked to him like I was his dad. The things that you need to do. And this was before the incident where he was [suspended] from the baseball team [for stealing crab legs]. I’m the type of person, I will go out of my way to help anybody.
Normally, I don’t like giving people advice if I haven’t been down that road myself. But if I give you advice on something that I know more about than you by just falling out of bed in the morning, if you can’t take that advice and learn from it, then I’ve got nothing else to do with the situation.
You’re on your own.”
Like it or not, Jameis is projected to be selected somewhere in the first round in the 2015 NFL Draft, and teams are always looking for the next great QB to turn around their declining franchise.
Teams that take a QB in the first round are usually are looking for the player to come in and play sooner rather than later. A lot of teams need a new guy under center but some teams are still holding out hope for the young guys currently on the roster. Teams like Oakland, Cleveland, Jacksonville, and Minnesota are committed to their own young guys for now, so they will most likely look elsewhere in 2015.
Some teams that may be looking to grab a guy like Winston in the first round are the Bills, Dolphins, Jets, Texans, Titans, Bucs, and Rams. Those teams may be punting on their current QBs in the offseason and looking to start fresh with a new leader. I’m not going to go into detail about each team but you can tell ownership and upper management is running out of patience for each quarterback on those teams.
Some of those teams are very talented and quite possibly are just a solid QB away from making it into the playoffs. But is Jameis going to grow into that guy?
Over 2,000 memorabilia items with Winston’s signature showed up on the James Spence Authentication website. These items have been verified as authentic, and oh by the way were sequentially numbered, suggesting Winston signed them at an organized signing event.
It seems like Winston caught the same disease Johnny Manziel had during his post-Heisman college career. Winston can’t stay out of the headlines for all of the wrong reasons and I’m not sure NFL teams will want to waste a first round pick on a guy you don’t trust when he walks out of the training facility.
With some of the latest news surrounding Jameis Winston, draft insider Mel Kiper dropped Winston from pick one to No. 15. Also, Oregon QB Marcus Mariota is now the number-one QB on the board.
Nobody is denying his talent, but teams may be hesitant to hand over the keys to the franchise to a guy like Winston who doesn’t even have his own life in order.
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Will Jameis Winston Play Major League Baseball?