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Strengths: Arm, size, passing mechanics, competitiveness

Weaknesses: Decision-making, maturity

You don’t want to read anything else about Jameis Winston. I don’t want to write anything else about Jameis Winston. How about we just wait and see what the Titans do so I can get started on the next slide?

OK, my editors just put the kibosh on that idea. Let’s start over.

Talking about Jameis Winston at this point is like talking about a presidential candidate on the eve of the election. There are supporters and detractors, and the few remaining open minds are leaning one way or the other and won’t be influenced by a few paragraphs on the Internet.

Like a famous politician, the human Jameis Winston is all but buried beneath mountains of opinion, innuendo, racial politics, sexual politics, class politics and other socio-cultural debris that will cling to him forever unless he wins three Super Bowls. All the baggage bears only a little relevance upon whether he can successfully throw footballs and meet society’s bare decency minimums.

In other words, writing about Winston is less like writing about Russell Wilson or Johnny Manziel and more like writing about Hillary Clinton or Chris Christie. And the young man hasn’t received a paycheck yet.

So, sticking to the narrow task of grading this selection …

The problem with scouting Winston is that everyone wants to grade him on an ace-fail system. Bring up the character issues, and Winston quickly becomes a Hannibal Lecter straw demon for those who like to throw one-size-fits-all character blankets over everyone from a guy who yells at his coach to Aaron Hernandez. His supporters cry foul, perhaps rightfully, and while some establish fortifications at immature but eager to grow, others string together rationalizations and legal technicalities until Winston sounds like Sir Galahad.

Bring up the interceptions, and before long some detractor is claiming that Winston cannot throw 10 yards downfield without cramming the ball into a defender’s earhole. The supporters race to the rescue again and explain away those 18 interceptions in 2014. It’s a pro-style offense! He didn’t have enough weapons, because Rashad Greene is chopped liver! The boosters also perceive interception criticism as a stealth attack on Winston’s intelligence-maturity-character, but only because it so often is.

Bring up the athletic limitations, the slow 40 times and visible paunch whenever Winston wears something more revealing than a hoodie, and BOOM! A. Nonimous Executive makes a JaMarcus Russell comparison. This provokes a full-bore persecution complex within Camp Rah-Rah Winston and, frankly, doesn’t reflect well on the draft-coverage industry.

Just as in an election season, moderate voices get drowned out. Winston is not JaMarcus, but he is not Colin Kaepernick or Andrew Luck as an athlete, either. The same can be said of his maturity and character: He’s not Ryan Leaf, but he sure as heck isn’t Russell Wilson. As for the interceptions: They are going to be a problem, but they don’t make him worthless as a human being.

But then we are left with the fact that Winston is the first pick in the 2015 draft, yet he is clearly not Luck, Wilson, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, or anyone else we might dream of getting with the top pick of the draft (well, maybe Ben Roethlisberger if all goes well). He’s a prospect benefiting from a weak quarterback market, a team with a desperate need, and the Confirmation Bias, a psychological phenomenon that makes all of us, from Lovie Smith and Jason Licht to Mike Mayock to you and I, reluctant to change our minds. Winston looked exceptional in 2013, we locked him in as the Next Big Thing, and then spent a year explaining away evidence to the contrary.

If you are scouting honestly, Winston gets a B or C for on-field decision-making, a charitable B or C for character, and a B for pure athleticism. Yes, he has some A-pluses, but the Buccaneers just made him the valedictorian.

Winston can rise to this occasion. But everyone from fans to Lovie to Jameis must accept that there is a great deal of rising that must be done.

Grade: C+