As other teams around the league are having their seasons scrambled by quarterbacks with shoulder injuries, Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter is glad he’s not having season-ending conversations about Jameis Winston.

That doesn’t mean he’s going to be able to play this week with a sprained AC joint, but the news could have been a lot worse.

Via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, Koetter said Winston won’t throw much if at all this week in practice, but hasn’t been ruled out for Sunday’s game at Buffalo. Doctors have told Koetter that Winston should be medically cleared, but that pain tolerance and ability to put enough zip on his passes will be the biggest factors.

“Yeah, of course. You don’t want anybody to be hurt,” Koetter said. “The fact that he’s not definitely out, that’s obviously good news. You don’t want your quarterback to be hurt. But Jameis took a shot, he landed right on that thing. Everybody saw the clip of what happened to Aaron Rodgers. We were hoping for the best. . . .

“The way I understand it, he will be cleared medically to play. I know Jameis can handle a lot of pain. I think it will be does Jameis feel like he can play at the level he needs to play at. The No. 1 thing in all of this is that Jameis’ long-term health has to be the No. 1 thing.”

Nothing against Ryan Fitzpatrick (who led them to 33 points in the second half Sunday), but the expectations change without your starter and they know it.

Since backup quarterback Ryan Griffin’s six weeks on IR are up, he can practice for the next two weeks before he’s activated to return, but can’t play. That gives them a scout team quarterback through the week, though they might need to sign a backup for the game if Winston can’t do that by Sunday.