Claire-ification: Jameis Winston’s pick shows NFL continues to draft talent over character

With the first pick in the 2015 NFL draft, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Jameis Winston, a quarterback from Florida State.

In its description of the highly-touted recruit, Sports Illustrated labelled Winston as a player who “will stand in to make the throw even when he knows the big hit is coming.”

By selecting a 21-year-old embroiled in controversy, the Buccaneers are standing in and making a play, all the while knowing that a big hit is coming.

Winston is currently the subject of a sexual assault lawsuit stemming from an alleged rape in 2012 on his college campus. The quarterback was suspended for the first half of FSU’s game against Clemson in September for screaming vulgar comments in the university’s student center. His record also includes shoplifting crab legs.

While at Florida State, the NFL’s top draft pick was a decorated athlete in both football and baseball. He is the youngest player to ever win the Heisman Trophy, college football’s most coveted award. Last season, the quarterback led the Seminoles to its second-consecutive undefeated regular season and starred in the first-ever College Football Playoff Semifinal, hosted at the Rose Bowl.

Despite Winston’s accolades, drafting him with the top pick was a mistake.

There were other options for the Buccaneers – namely Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, who heard his name called right after Winston. But Winston has a better arm and pocket presence, qualities which apparently justified the Buccaneers’ decision to draft him.

There was no need to glorify a misguided man when Tampa Bay had other viable options that would serve them similarly. The Indianapolis Colts faced a similar decision in 1998, when they chose to draft Peyton Manning over Ryan Leaf.

Leaf had a stronger arm, but Manning had stronger character. Leaf was seen as a wild card, but Manning was touted as reliable. Today, Manning has five MVP awards. in 2014, Leaf was sentence to five years in prison for burglary, theft and drug possession.

By deciding to draft Winston, the Buccaneers, and to some degree the NFL, are responsible for affirming the detrimental mentality that Winston, and other athletes like him, are above the law.

Pundits debated in the run up to last weekend whether Winston’s rap sheet would cause his draft stock to fall, seeing as the league as a whole is trying to improve its image after multiple publicity crises this year.

Aaron Hernandez, former New England Patriots tight end, was found guilty April 15 of first-degree murder. In September, allegations surfaced that Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson had used a switch to discipline his 4-year-old son. Peterson pleaded no contest to the charge that he beat his son with a tree branch and is still an active member of the NFL.

In arguably the most high-profile case this year, Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was suspended from the league after TMZ released footage from a casino elevator security camera that showed the football player knocking his then-fiancee unconscious and then dragging her body out of the elevator. The NFL initially took no action against Rice until public outcry forced the league to act, although it is highly likely that Rice will play again.

With these indiscretions in mind, this year’s draft, which ran from Thursday to Saturday, was supposed to be a so-called “character” draft, with decisions being made with players’ off-the-field activities being taken into account.

While Winston’s many accolades make him a qualified NFL athlete, his off-field indiscretions make him undeserving of a Heisman Trophy and the first spot in the draft. The Buccaneers’ choice to pick Winston at the top of the draft immediately ruined any chances of that being the case.

Once again, as when the NFL ignored problems with Peterson and Rice, the professional athletics culture chose talent over what matters more.

It chose pocket presence over moral presence.

Email Fahy at [email protected].