Bruce Arians: Jameis Winston needs a better team around him

[Captain Fear]

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The biggest storyline of the Buccaneers offseason has been what the arrival of head coach Bruce Arians will mean for quarterback Jameis Winston.

Winston is entering his fifth season and the first overall pick of the 2015 draft has no contract beyond this year, which sets the stage for the team to make a big decision about his future. There’s been a lot of discussion about the things Winston needs to clean up in his game in order to put together the kind of season that would lead to a long-term commitment, but Arians doesn’t believe the entire onus is on the quarterback.

During an appearance on The Jim Rome Show, Arians stressed the need for others to step up to help Winston reach a higher level of play.

“Put a better team around him,” Arians said, via the Tampa Bay Times. “Run the ball better. Play better defense. Don’t play from behind where he’s got to throw it 50 times and put the onus on him to win the game and make kicks. That’s been a bugaboo around here for a while. So yeah, just put a better football team around him so that he can just play quarterback. He doesn’t have to be Superman.”

The Bucs didn’t radically overhaul their personnel in either the run game or on defense, so getting better results will rely in some part on whether the systems installed by Arians and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles are better suited to the players on hand.