Browns quarterback Jameis Winston looks back on his time under coach Sean Payton.
As they say, anything can happen in the NFL, and the Cleveland Browns defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, 24-19, on Week 12 thanks partly to the strong play of quarterback Jameis Winston. The new Browns starter has led the team to a 2-2 record, one of the few bright spots for the team after Deshaun Watson's season-ending Achilles injury. Even under Watson, the team trudged to a 1-6 record, an extreme regression from their 11-win season in 2023, though curiously, coach Kevin Stefanski never considered benching him. Now, as the Browns face the Broncos in Week 13, Jameis Winston reflected on how playing under coach Sean Payton with the Saints influenced him.
“I would say his aura,” the new starter said, via the official Browns website. “His essence, him being authentically himself. And I think that won me over so much because from a head coach perspective, I haven't really seen that much personality in my head coach.”
Week 13: Browns vs. Broncos
Moreover, Jameis Winston continued explaining the impact of playing under Sean Payton has left on him, before the coach went to the Broncos.
“What Sean possessed was a leadership quality that was so important to our team, at New Orleans Saints, because, I've always put Drew [Brees] on this pedestal, and I knew it was Drew's team, but in a sense, Sean was one of our biggest leaders, our hardest workers, and definitely he was a leader among men, and that's how I put it,” the quarterback said.
Then, Winston added, “He was one of the best leaders I've been around.”
Against the Broncos in Week 13, the Browns will try winning back-to-back games for the first time this season, and it will be Winston's first time starting five games in a row since suffering an ACL injury in 2021 with the Saints.
Still, the quarterback didn't put too much focus on the drama in facing his former coach.
“Yeah, Sean don't want me to prove nothing to him,” Winston said, via Chris Easterling on Akron Beacon Journal. “What I'm doing right now is I'm taking the one play, one day at a time, and that's how my focus is. My focus is taking it one play at a time and executing that one play to the best of my abilities. So that's the most important thing on my mind right now.”
Preparations
Additionally, Winston shared a little bit of his own preparation for playing at a high-altitude environment in Denver.
“We have an altitude room in-house,” he said, via Leah Doherty of Cleveland19. “So I'm going to be encouraging all my teammates to use the altitude room. I know I got my work in yesterday and I'm probably going to get some more in throughout the week. So just taking all the resources that this organization allows us to have and making the most of it.”
Browns fans should thank Winston for providing them something to savor throughout a disastrous season. However, Jameis Watson may stay with the Browns awhile.
