My personal highlight of the 2014 NFL season came on the last day of the regular season. My wife was taking her turn driving on the trip back from Omaha. I spent my time in the passenger seat refreshing the score of the Bucs-Saints game, and wishing I could be pacing back and forth somewhere. The Bucs raced out to a 20-7 lead, but were faltering in the fourth quarter. Drew Brees threw a touchdown with under two minutes left to give the Saints their first lead of the day. Finally, the clock struck 0, and the Bucs had lost. While this is normally an occasion for sadness in the Bogacz household, this defeat was met with joy. In fact, this just happened to be the greatest loss in Bucs history. This loss meant my Tampa Bay Buccaneers were going to get their first franchise quarterback, ever. They were going to draft Marcus Mariota.
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Let's back up a bit. If you're one of the dozen or so that regularly follow this blog, you might have noticed that I have never written at length about the NFL. Sure, I've been a Buccaneers fan for more than two decades, but the sport as a whole has faded from the spotlight for me. This was partly explained in a post from a couple years ago:
"However, (the NFL is) also terrible. Concussion problems that aren't getting fully addressed. A weird penchant for pink, when it isn't that beneficial. A weird insistence on parity at the expense of all else. A terrible programming strategy that forces consumers to go through Direct TV to be able to watch the games they want to."
Of course, that was written in 2013. Before the delayed response to Greg Hardy's and Adrian Peterson's transgressions. Before the Ray Rice fiasco, and the charade of forcing Janay Rice to apologize for being abused. Before the blackballing of Michael Sam. Before players starting retiring in or even before their primes, in part due to the leagues lack of progress with respect to concussions. No large organization run by humans is going to be perfect, but the NFL is on a streak of such poor decision-making that it's clear there's fundamental issues that run deeper than just the commissioner we love to scapegoat.
In spite of all this, the Buccaneers are still my number one priority as a sports fan. The combination of long, personal history and potential glory if they win (more than a few people watch the Super Bowl) behooves their primacy in my sporting life. Still, allegiances can change, and with my love of the NFL waning, so too could my affection for the Bucs.
This is where Mariota enters the story. While the team has had a good deal of success, they've never had that one franchise offensive player that can carry the load. My continued love for the Bucs, and perhaps for the whole NFL, would be greatly strengthened by finally getting that one transcendent franchise quarterback. Not only does Mariota have the skills and the history of accomplishment to be able to be that guy, but by all accounts he's also a tremendous person that I would love to root for over the next decade.
As you probably know, at least from the title of this post if not the three months of draft speculation, it does not appear that my dream will come true. The Bucs appear poised to take Jameis Winston with the first pick, and install him as the potential franchise savior. While I think he has roughly the same upside as Mariota (see the links in the footnote below*), he obviously comes with a great deal of baggage.** As such, rooting for him will come with a big helping of cognitive dissonance. As a Bucs fan, this dissonance has always existed - Warren Sapp's troubles on and off the field, come to mind. That said, the accusations against Winston are far more serious than those of your average problematic-past-having NFLer, and his behavior since then has done nothing to show any sense of sensitivity, awareness, or basic adult maturity. Showing any level of support for Jameis Winston is going to be a difficult ask.
*Winston over Mariota also reflects the NFL's lack of imagination. Just because Mariota played in a different system in college doesn't mean he doesn't have the tools to be a great QB in the pros (brilliant idea: if it's so prolific, maybe you could implement Oregon's system in the pros....crazy idea, I know). Complex models, and more simple, scouting-based approaches alike think that the two are pretty similar in terms of overall talent. But Winston becomes the "safe pick" because Jimbo spoon-fed him to the NFL.
**Calling an unresolved rape charge "baggage" is probably too casual of a word choice, but I can't really think of a better way to phrase it.
In the end, I don't really know what having Jameis Winston as the face of my team will be like. My proclivity to extend understanding and compassion to people who do bad things (I don't really believe there are "bad guys," per se), combined with the possibility that the accusation against him is actually false, means that I might be able to be a genuine fan of his. At the same time, the prospect of devaluing the hero-worshipping culture that likely influenced the Tallahassee police during their half-assed investigation seems like one of those things that's bigger than any one player, even if he is your team's potential savior. There isn't one great answer, at least not now, so I'll try my best to enjoy my team's moment in the spotlight, and hope that things work out for the best.
In the meantime, I'll look back at my second-favorite moment of the past NFL season, when I met a Bucs scout at a Notre Dame tailgate, and told him to draft Mariota before I even introduced myself. Hopefully he listened.
