There's more to the Giants' Jameis Winston than one-liners and light-heartedness
Jameis Winston at Giants minicamp on Tuesday. Credit: Ed Murray
With the way folks have been talking about Jameis Winston this spring it felt as if he should have been accompanied by a band playing a peppy theme song, an opening monologue and a rundown of the guests who would join him on the couch when he walked in front of the cameras and microphones on Tuesday afternoon.
We’ve got a great show for you tonight, he should have promised.
“Jameis is a wild card, just as a human being,” Giants wide receiver Darius Slayton said of his new teammate last week. “It's so hard to describe. He’ll be talking just like this and it's just the random thoughts that come to his head and they just come out and it's like ‘We were talking about a slant, how did we get to Kentucky Fried Chicken?’ Just hard lefts. It's just random hard lefts. But then he comes right back on topic. It's like, am I tripping or are you tripping?”
“You have to be ready for anything,” quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney said Tuesday, adding to the hype. “He keeps it light. Jameis does a great job of understanding when to throw in a good one-liner. He definitely keeps it fun.”
So he arrived with a huge grin, bubbly personality and expectations for hilarity at his first in-person availability with the New York media. He’d previously spoken only through Zooms but this, finally, was a chance to catch an episode of “Jameis: Live!”
None of those show biz conventions showed up, though. The talk show hosts of the world remained safe for one more night.
But Winston wasn’t brought here to compete with Kimmel and Fallon. At least not at this point. Perhaps that will come down the road.
No, his job is to somehow contribute to the Giants’ success through his interactions with Russell Wilson and Jaxson Dart, his fellow quarterbacks. And that may be more difficult than keeping everyone in stitches.
Winston is a quirky dude in a strange place on this team. He certainly isn’t the quarterback of the present, the one who figures to open the season. That job has gone to Wilson. But he isn’t the quarterback of the future, either. That’s Dart, the first-round pick the Giants traded up to select. So what’s left other than being the ham in a depth chart sandwich?
Wilson has been the quarterback for almost all of the first-team reps through this offseason program. When the second team gets its turn, though, it could be Dart or Winston or even Tommy DeVito lined up with them. There is no consistency at that spot.
That’s not a landscape Winston thought he was plunging into when he signed with the Giants. At that point, they hadn’t inked Wilson (although there was certainly plenty of chatter about them adding a big-name starter such as Aaron Rodgers or Matthew Stafford earlier in the offseason). They certainly hadn’t drafted Dart (although they were definitely deep in the process of scouting the position).
When Winston agreed to become a Giant he was the best, most proven, most decorated quarterback on the roster. Now he’s in roster no-man’s land.
If the Giants find out early this season they need to make a change with Wilson because of performance or injury and opt to go with Dart, Winston could be leapfrogged. With a personality as enormous as Winston’s, that dynamic normally could become uncomfortable. Even toxic.
Or haven’t you heard? Winston isn’t exactly normal in many regards.
The Giants probably didn’t know it at the time they added him, but they may have found the perfect player for this odd scenario.
“My job is to be the best Jameis Winston I can be,” he said, allowing his sincerity to override his hilarity for a moment. “Jameis Winston incorporates being a leader, helping the young buck. It’s learning things from the older veteran. Assisting the older veteran. . . . It encompasses a lot. But I stay focused on what I would love and what I would love is to be my very best.”
There was a time when Winston didn’t project that part of himself. He came into the league highly touted as the first overall pick in the 2015 draft but with some red flags regarding his character. Google the words “Jameis Winston” and “crab legs” for starters. Then move on to the sexual assault charges made against him in 2012. There were no criminal charges, but a settlement was reached with the accuser.
Those are not the personality traits the Giants have experienced during his short time here.
“When I first came into this league I wasn’t looked upon as a man of high character, I wasn’t looked upon as that team-oriented guy,” Winston said. “There was this perception of me that just wasn’t true. Through the course of diving in and growing every single year I have proven myself to be who I am. That is the greatest compliment that someone can give you is that you are truly who you are. Despite the character or the giggles, I think if you ask any of my teammates or coaches who I am, they would say: ‘Jameis is truly who he is.’ ”
What it will come down to for Winston’s tenure with the Giants, however long or brief a run that is, however many or few games that encompasses, is whether he can play at a high level.
“The most important thing is knowing what to do and then going out there and being able to do it,” coach Brian Daboll said of Winston. “He’s certainly a fun guy to be around, in the meetings, outside. He takes his craft seriously. A high pick, the highest pick you could have, and he’s been around the block a little bit, a couple different places. He's been a good addition.”
So Winston will keep working on his quarterbacking. But he’ll also continue to hone his charisma, his comedic timing, his showmanship, his positivity. Those soft skills may wind up being just as important to the Giants’ season as any passes he throws.
“I’m grateful I can bring joy to the game,” Winston said. “I’m grateful that through my hard work and effort on the football field that people notice me by my character . . . We need to be able to drop our hair a little bit.”
And then he ended his availability and walked off the stage.
“Until next time,” he said with that smile as wide as the Hudson. “Until next time!”
It’s going to be quite a show.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
