The Titans might have been able to stay up late celebrating.
But after taking a beating from the guy drafted one spot behind him, Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston had a date with the film room.
The No. 1 overall pick in the draft couldn’t have enjoyed what he watched, from the pick-six on his first pass as a pro to the 42-14 loss as a whole.
“I stayed up until probably about 2 o’clock [in the morning],” Winston said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “Just trying to see what went wrong. I was trying to get every excuse just to put that one behind me. But it hurt. The sun did rise the next day, and I was back out there playing football.”
Of course, maybe it’s just Mariota, since the only game he lost in college was to Mariota and Oregon in the Rose Bowl last January.
“It’s a very humbling experience because the game could’ve gone either way,” Winston said. “If I had had a great game, people would’ve wondered, ‘How is he going to handle his bad game when it comes?’ I got it out of the way. It’s no laughing matter, but it happened fast. I was not expecting it to happen that fast, but it happened. So as a young man, as the quarterback of this program, I’ve got to grow up and try not to live this experience again.”
The fact he’s so unaccustomed to failure might make it hard to process, but from the looks of the Bucs, he better get used to it. Because unless he gets a lot better quickly, they don’t appear to be in position to win many, whether they’re playing Mariota or anyone else.