Jameis Winston’s infamous “Eat a W” speech apparently nearly included a NSFW measurement competition.
“Right before we ran on the field he said, ‘This is one of them games, sometimes, you guys just pull it out and show em whose is bigger,” Ex-Buccaneer teammate Gerald McCoy said of Winston’s viral 2017 speech on the “25/10 Show” with Desean Jackson.
“All y’all know is that ‘Eat the W.’ Y’all don’t even know that whole day, bro. We had no shot to win that day.”
The Buccaneers wound up losing to the Saints, 30-10, with Winston as their starting quarterback.
McCoy added that Winston actually wasn’t supposed to address the team like that.
Winston jumped ahead of middle linebacker Kwon Alexander, according to McCoy, and began putting his fingers in his mouth while the rest of the team watched confused.
“I say one thing, I want everybody to look at me, I’m gonna pass it to Kwon after I say one thing,” Winston said before putting the fingers in his mouth in a representation of eating a “W.” “That’s a W, let’s eat one. Let’s eat one. That’s a W. How many people want to eat a W tonight? I’m going to eat a W today.”
Winston’s attempt to inspire his teammates didn’t have the desired effect.
“I was like, ‘Dawg, What is you doing?’” McCoy said as Winston began his “Eat a W” speech.
McCoy adds that tight end Cam Brate attempted to tell McCoy to listen to their quarterback but McCoy stopped him to say, “Man, shut up, I don’t care about that. What you talking about? Why is he doing that?”
McCoy, who was an All-Pro level player at the time, wasn’t the only of his teammates perplexed by Winston’s action.
Fellow Pro Bowl defender Lavonte David, who is still with the team seven years later, previously expressed his confusion with Winston’s attempt at pumping up the team.
“He meant well by it. But that particular thing didn’t go over well with the rest of the team, and the outcome of that game kind of proved it,” David said in 2021 via The Score. “It definitely was something that kind of caught me off-guard. I was kind of like, ‘What?’ It is what it is, though. We all love Jameis. He meant well. He’s a great competitor, but unfortunately, that’s going to follow him for a long time.”
Oddly enough, Winston might get another crack at leading the team as cries have continued to grow louder in Cleveland to bring him in off the bench and have Deshaun Watson pick up a clipboard.
Winston was among the worst quarterbacks in the NFL in Week 1 for the Browns and has been sued for allegedly sexual assaulting a woman in 2020.
