NFL Insiders: Jameis Winston Needs a Handler, No Matter What Bucs Say

CHICAGO — One league official, watching how Jameis Winston on Thursday posted a photo of himself smiling before a lovely plate of crab legs, said that photo pushed him to the conclusion many around the NFL reached some time ago: Winston needs a handler.

The "NFL Handler" has many different connotations and many different meanings to many different people in the sport. To NFL team officials, handlers are valuable. They keep players off the police blotter, help them make smart decisions and keep them away from negative headlines.

To players, handlers are spies. Narcs. Snitches. They are a nuisance who keep players from living their lives. Handlers and accompanying rules became mostly known in the case of Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant, as reported by ESPN.com's Calvin Watkins in 2012.

In conversations with eight team and league officials over the past week, seven of them agreed that if the Buccaneers were smart, they would institute rules for Winston similar to those the Cowboys had for Bryant.

One person disagreed, saying that such rules can't be used on a quarterback.

"It would erode his leadership in the locker room," the team official explained. "You can't have a quarterback being babysat."

This photo was posted Thursday on Jameis Winston's Instagram account, and then it was deleted.

The official said, instead, what Winston needs is a personal public relations expert ("or two, or three") who will be at Winston's side. Such a person would have ruled out the crab legs photo, the official said. (A series of tweets from former Buccaneers quarterback Shaun King said the photo was to help a charity. The Buccaneers asked Winston to delete the photo, according to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, and he did. The Buccaneers later said no one from the organization asked Winston to take it down.)

As that one dissenting official explained, Winston needed a PR person to tell him the optics of such a photo, on the same day as the draft, look terrible.

The Buccaneers publicly say Winston will not have handlers.

"I've heard an awful lot about mentors and different people we are going to bring in to help out," said coach Lovie Smith at his press conference after the team selected Winston. "No, we are not bringing anyone in. We don't really need any mentors or anything like that.

Mark Wallheiser/Associated Press

"We have some people that really care about our organization that will be around our organization. And for our veterans, any player coming in, there is a role the veterans play in our locker room. But we wouldn't bring anyone in that needs to be babysat or anything like that. That's not the case with Jameis.

"As I said before, we do have a great locker room," Smith continued. "And I know they are excited about giving advice to any player coming in to help us win football games."

"Jameis is his own man, and Jameis is going to heed the advice of a lot of veterans, I'm sure of it," said Jason Licht, the team's general manager. "I've had discussions with him about that, and Jameis is going to be his own man. He has to find his own way, just like all of our players.

"Anybody that leaves college and enters the workforce...these young men become men the minute they're drafted. ... I'm sure he's going to take advantage of our great locker room, and we're going to rely on our locker room to help out all of our draft picks."

But no one in the NFL believes that Winston won't have a handler. "It would be football malpractice if they didn't," said one general manager.

Winston's father, Antonor Winston, told USA Today's Rachel Axon in May of last year that he wanted Winston to have people around him "24/7" when Winston was at Florida State.

"He's supposed to have somebody around him 24/7," Antonor Winston said. "He a Heisman Trophy winner so [he's] definitely not supposed to be by [himself]."

That's the point team officials make with Winston. He will need someone around him night and day, because now the stakes are even higher than they were in college.

Team officials also speculate that Winston will have a series of rules to follow different from most, if not all, of his teammates. One official said it's likely Winston will have a curfew. But the dissenting official countered, "No way that will happen. He's a quarterback. You can't have your starting quarterback being known that he has a curfew."

But all agree the Buccaneers will have to take some type of extraordinary measure. "It's not just Winston's immaturity that's the problem," said one general manager. "It's the fact there will be people trying to take advantage of it. He's the type of guy who will play along, and that's what will get him in trouble."

What exactly a handler is, and the job description, varies from team to team. One official estimated that about 10 percent of NFL players have handlers, or strict rules about behavior—or both. Often these rules are contractually mandated.

Handlers are often ex-law enforcement, and their job is basically to act as babysitters. They drive players to events or clubs and even practices and games. They stick with the player as much as possible and basically just watch over the player. They then report back to the team if they see anything the player does that would cause the team concern.

One former team executive said handlers can be non-police: "They can be people from the player's life (a relative, an adviser, etc.) but it gets dicey if those aren't great models, and the club says ["No"]. They can be club-chosen (former players, former assistant coaches), but then the player has to buy in. They can be agents, but then the agent has to be willing to tell the player things he doesn't want to hear, and that rarely happens."

Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

The most infamous example is Bryant. Here are some of the rules he reportedly had to follow in 2012, per ESPN.com:

• A midnight curfew. If he's going to miss curfew, team officials must know in advance.
• No drinking alcohol.
• He can't attend any strip clubs and can only attend nightclubs if they are approved by the team and he has a security team with him.
• He must attend counseling sessions twice a week.
• A rotating three-man security team will leave one man with Bryant at all times.
• Members of the security team will drive Bryant to practices, games and team functions.

Owner Jerry Jones said then that Bryant was not the first Cowboys player to have handlers or strict rules. Other Cowboys players, Jones explained, had even more draconian mandates. "No this is [not] the strictest at all," he said of Bryant's rules.

One veteran player told me Friday, "We are adults. At some point, it's our job to handle our own business."

But that point may not be now for Winston.

Winston likely won't have a system like Bryant's, but if you believe people around football, he will need something. He will need a handler.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.