Must watch: Jameis Winston escapes rush to complete huge pass

There were plenty of highlights to go around in Tampa Bay’s thorough 36-10 dismantling of Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears on Sunday, but one of the finest moments happened just after halftime.

The pocket collapsed around Buccaneers quarterback Jameis Winston, and he ran backward like he was Bo Jackson in “Tecmo Bowl,” just trying to increase the degree of difficulty. Winston’s speed isn’t exactly blinding; indeed, it’s easy to mistake videos of him for still pics. But he burbled around enough to elude the Chicago rush, heave the ball downfield like he was trying to throw it over a house, and lo and behold, there was Mike Evans waiting to bail out Winston. The very next play, Winston hit Freddie Martino for a 43-yard touchdown, and that was pretty much that for the Bears’ chances.

Winston finished the day with 312 yards passing, 23 completions on 33 attempts. However, he wasn’t quite as elusive the rest of the game, taking four sacks on the afternoon. Were the Bucs playing a team with even slightly more competence than the Bears, they could’ve been in real trouble.

For Winston – the perpetrator of one of the ugliest dropbacks in recent football history against Oregon while he was still in college – the completion, while ungainly, had to be a bit of sweet in-your-faceness. Tampa Bay still has a long, long way to go to be competitive on a regular basis, but Winston’s holding up his end of the deal.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.