When quarterback Jameis Winston met with the media for the first time as an employee of the Buccaneers on Friday, one of the first questions inevitably focused on his decision to post on social media a photo of the No. 1 pick holding a plate of crab legs.
“That photo, I had to thank Capt. Keith [Colburn] from The Deadliest Catch and that was just a thank you to him,” Winston said. “It was a big moment for my family that we got to share with each other. I would just like to thank him for donating those crab legs to our party.”
Winston said he didn’t think there would any negative reaction to the photo, notwithstanding his notorious 2014 shoplifting incident involving crab legs, which he more recently blamed on a grocery store employee giving him free food.
“I wasn’t thinking what would come from it,” Winston said. “I was just showing thanks to a dear friend of mine that I was blessed to have him provide the party for my family with the crab legs.”
While Winston wasn’t specifically asked whether the team advised him to take down the photo (Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reported that it did; G.M. Jason Licht told PFT Live that it didn’t), Winston said the decision to delete the picture came from a desire not to distract from his arrival in Tampa.
“That’s the only reason I took the picture down,” Winston said. “I didn’t want any negative publicity for this day, because it took it away from this whole organization and my family. I never would have expected that.”
So, basically, the incident was more about tone deafness than witty self-awareness. Which could be a bigger problem for Winston moving forward; with his every move destined to be scrutinized, Winston needs to be able to quickly realize when something he says or does can be tied back to one of the various incidents from his time at Florida State that won’t be disappearing simply because he doesn’t go to school there anymore.