Scandal-Plagued NFL Will Be Leery of Jameis Winston

This isn't a story bashing Jameis Winston. This is a story about the changing world Winston will soon enter and the lessons that need to be learned in the meantime. 

"What concerns me about Winston," one NFC scout said, "is there's no learning curve. That's a scary thing for a quarterback who is supposed to be a leader. To me, he's gone from a top-three pick to a late second-rounder."

"Our league right now needs leaders," an AFC scout said, "and I don't see him being that. He hasn't demonstrated that."

Those are the only quotes from anonymous personnel men that I'm going to use. There are many more, but those two are enough to provide some context about what people in the NFL think of Winston following his latest incident.

They believe he has hurt himself more than he would have in previous years because of the horrid climate the league is in now, where the decisions of players, team executives, owners and even the commissioner of the NFL are under the microscope.

Congress is watching. Advertisers are watching. That won't change in a year or two, or even 10. This is a new time.

We've seen numerous examples of the old NFL versus the new one over the past 10 days or so. There was another pertinent example that emerged Thursday. The Arizona Cardinals deactivated running back Jonathan Dwyer, accused of domestic violence, and released Chris Rainey from the practice squad, previously accused of domestic violence.

Now, the Cardinals knew Rainey had a history of domestic violence but signed him anyway. But in this new climate, they sent him packing. That's how much things have changed, and that change will stick.

In this climate of hyper-accountability—a climate that will change the way the NFL drafts, evaluates and sees its players—talents like Winston will suffer real consequences. He's not entering the same ol' NFL.

Bill Polian, who built Super Bowl teams and will one day go into the Hall of Fame, was asked on ESPN if he would draft Winston. Polian's response: I don't know.

I don't know.

He's the best player in college football and…I don't know. 

Sure, the NFL will always crave talent, and yes, there will still be instances where a team will draft a player who beat someone or robbed someone or smoked something. That will still happen because there will always be a coach or scout who will say, "I can change him."

However, the number of teams that will do that is shrinking and will continue to do so. The biggest reason: Owners are being held accountable now. While many of them have run from the spotlight in these latest crises with Ray Rice and others, trust me, they feel the heat.

I'm hearing stories of several owners calling meetings recently with their personnel people, and those owners, who in the past weren't heavily involved in their respective team's draft or free-agent signings except to authorize the bonus check, now want to know more about the men on the team they own.

Because of Rice and Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy and others in the NFL's month from hell, owners can no longer keep a safe distance. The nuclear fallout has finally reached them. They have to get their hands dirty like everyone else.

To be clear: I'm not saying the NFL will no longer draft players with behavioral issues, but their drops on draft boards will be more precipitous than ever. I'm already hearing that a few NFL teams, no matter what happens from here, are strongly considering removing Winston from their boards completely. That's not hyperbole or a rumor; that's being discussed.

Draft analyst Mel Kiper dropped Winston on his board from third overall to 25th. 

Again, there is almost a state of panic in football now, and it won't go away soon. Winston is already caught up in it. In a way, he'll be a test case for this new world.

If you believe that all Winston has to do is not get into trouble again until the draft, then you don't understand the seismic shift occurring in pro football. What's happened to him already is more than enough to make teams uber-cautious.

No, this isn't a story bashing Winston. This is about a change in the place where he wants to go next: an NFL that could look drastically different than the one we see now.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.