Where will free agent quarterback and former number one overall pick Jameis Winston land in 2022 NFL Free Agency? We look at five options.
Jameis Winston may be coming off of an ACL injury, but he might be the best quarterback in the 2022 NFL free agent class. The supply and demand at the quarterback position in the 2022 offseason is not exactly where you would want it to be if you’re a team in need at the position.
Players like Jimmy Garoppolo and Carson Wentz may be the best and most realistic options available via trade, and the 2022 NFL Draft class may not have a single consensus first-round player at the position for the first time since anyone can remember.
Nobody stands to benefit more from that than Jameis Winston, and perhaps other guys like Mitchell Trubisky and Marcus Mariota.
Jameis Winston could have a robust free agent market in 2022
So where is Jameis Winston going to land in 2022 free agency? We’d be silly not to start with the perceived favorites.
Jameis Winston landing spot no. 1: New Orleans Saints
It would be foolish not to mention the New Orleans Saints as potentially the most likely destination for Jameis Winston in 2022 free agency, provided they can find a way to get under the salary cap and afford him in the first place.
Winston was in the same boat as some of his peers in free agency back in 2020. He was fresh off of a 30-interception season, in need of a change of scenery, and he got into a pretty great situation.
The Saints effectively gave Winston a redshirt in 2020, which was surprising because Drew Brees missed pretty significant time that year.
Even though Winston didn’t play in 2020, he was the clear favorite to win the starting job in New Orleans in 2021 and that’s what happened.
Winston had 14 touchdowns and only three interceptions in his first 161 pass attempts of the 2021 season, good for an 8.7 touchdown percentage which, if extrapolated to an entire season, would have projected him somewhere around 50-plus touchdown passes.
It’s not certain that Winston could have kept that pace, but it was good enough to warrant another look with the Saints.
The big question mark now — is Winston’s biggest advocate (Sean Payton) out the door? Could he get better money elsewhere, even coming off of injury?
Those two factors could both wind up being huge.