On a day that Tennessee quarterback Marcus Mariota had an amazing 87-yard touchdown to lead the Titans to a 42-39 victory against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the best – and most important – run by a quarterback came from Tampa Bay’s Jameis Winston.

Trailing the Falcons, 19-16, late in the fourth quarter and facing a third-and-19 situation from the Atlanta 43, Winston was flushed from the pocket and dashed for 10 yards before running into Falcons linebackers Paul Worrilow and Phillip Wheeler. When neither Atlanta defender wrapped up Winston he popped up from the pile and rambled for another 10 yards to pick up a critical first down with 2:03 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Four plays later with 1:47 left in regulation, Winston rolled right and hit a sliding Mike Evans with a 6-yard touchdown pass to beat the Falcons and keep the Bucs’ playoff hopes alive.

“This is the story that everybody needs to talk about,” Winston said. “I go into the huddle – after that long drive, guys are tired – I said, ‘Who wants a touchdown?’ I smiled and said, ‘Who wants a touchdown?’ Mike said, ‘Me, me me!’ [laughter]. I said, ‘All right.’ And that’s the honest to God truth. That’s what literally happened. I said, ‘Who wants the touchdown?’ I wish the center was mic’d up, but Mike said, ‘Me, me, me!’ There were a couple other guys who said, ‘Me,’ too, but Mike was like a kid – ‘Me, me, me!’ – and I got him the ball.”

Winston has accounted for 22 touchdowns this season – 17 passing and five rushing – and that’s more than Mariota or any rookie this season. The fact that Winston has the Bucs back to .500 at 6-6 and in contention for the playoffs with four games remaining in the 2015 season should give him the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year honors over Mariota.

A quarterback’s success should ultimately be measured by wins and losses, and Winston has won twice as many games as Mariota has this year, which gives the Bucs rookie the edge.

The Buccaneers have been in existence for 40 years and after decades of average or sub-par quarterback play they finally have a franchise QB in Winston. This 21-year old young man is the real deal. He’s a legend in the making.

Winston is far more talented than Doug Williams, one of his idols, who was inducted into the Bucs Ring of Honor at halftime of Sunday’s game. Winston has the special will to win and “it factor” that Vinny Testaverde, Trent Dilfer and Josh Freeman – former Tampa Bay first-round quarterbacks – didn’t have.

The only thing that will hold Winston back from achieving greatness is Winston himself – if fame derails him. Yet I don’t see that happening. Winston’s passion for winning is too strong and his desire to be great is too important to him to screw up off the field. He’s matured, and those days appear to be behind him at Florida State.

Winston is a better passer than Williams ever was. His loves football more and works harder than Freeman ever did. He is more confident than Dilfer was. He makes better decisions than Testaverde did. And he has more intangibles and athletic ability than Brad Johnson, Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl-winning QB, possessed.

Winston’s leadership skills are off the charts. In less than one season he has become Tampa Bay’s leader, and both offensive and defensive players alike believe in him.

In Jameis the Bucs trust. And why wouldn’t they?

The guy’s name is Winston. He’s got the word “wins” in his name for crying out loud. Winning is what he does, as his 26-1 record with the Seminoles attests.

Yet rookie quarterbacks aren’t supposed to win and get their teams into playoff contention in their first season. They are supposed to go through growing pains – not lead their teams to 3-1 records in their division like Winston has with the Bucs in the NFC South.

“He’s amazing,” said Bucs linebacker Lavonte David, who picked off Atlanta’s Matt Ryan to seal the victory just moments after Winston’s touchdown pass. “To witness that play he made – that scramble – was crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. That play was so huge. That put us in position to win the game. He drove the ball down the field and put the ball in the end zone and give us the go-ahead touchdown.”

After the game I asked Winston a few questions in his post-game press conference and then I saw something really special happen. Long-time colleague and veteran sports columnist Gary Shelton asked Winston a question about whether the rookie viewed himself as a quarterback or a football player for an editorial piece he’s working on.

“I’m a football player,” Winston said succinctly. “I play quarterback, but I’m a football player.”

Because his answer was short, Shelton asked Winston a follow-up question in the same vein later in the press conference to try to illicit a longer response for his story.

In the heat of the moment, Winston blurted out that Shelton was trying to trick him into saying something, but then quickly figured out that the long-time Tampa reporter just wanted the rookie quarterback to elaborate on his premise.

“I just admire people that want to go out day-in and day-out and fight,” Winston answered. “When I said I’m a football player, I don’t say that that’s who I am, a football player. When I’m out there on the field, there’s a difference between an athlete and a football player. So when I say I’m a football player, that means that I’ll do anything that I possibly can do to help my team win in a football way.”

After his press conference was over, Winston didn’t rush out of the room to go celebrate with his teammates, nor did he leave immediately to go have dinner with Williams, which was on the agenda after the game. He stepped away from the podium and went to Shelton to apologize for not quite understanding his line of questioning at first, and for possibly embarrassing him publicly by suggesting that Shelton had an ulterior motive.

That is nothing but class from Winston. This guy is not a 21-year old kid. He’s a 21-year old man.

Winston gets it. He cares about people, and not just his teammates or Bucs fans or the school kids he meets through Bucs community relations visits. Winston cares about members of the media, too.

And there have been some members of the media – although very few that covers the Buccaneers, and certainly not PewterReport.com – that were quick to label Winston a character risk and/or an interception machine before the draft. They warned against Tampa Bay taking the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner and BCS National Champion, instead suggesting the Bucs select Mariota with the first overall pick.

What does Winston have to say to those critics?

“Thank you,” Winston said. “And God bless.”

David knows the Bucs drafted the right quarterback, leader and ball player in Winston.

“He’s special,” David said. “His passion for the game, his fight, his fire, his competitiveness, he wants to win. That’s what we need out of our quarterback. He’s proving everybody wrong. He’s great, man.”

Twelve games into his rookie season, Winston isn’t great yet. But he’s well on his way.

“I just admire guys who want to go out there and do anything to put their team in a winning position like the greats,” Winston said. “That’s what Tom Brady does, that’s what Peyton Manning does, that’s what Cam Newton is doing right now – he’s going out there and putting his team in a winning position.”

Bucs fans, we are witnessing the birth of a Manning-caliber quarterback in Winston, who has some Brady-esque qualities, according to Bucs left guard and team captain Logan Mankins, who knows greatness when he sees it.

“Definitely,” said Mankins, who began his career in New England blocking for Brady. “That is all that matters to Tom, and that is winning. That is what we get from Jameis. He just wants to win whether that’s handing off, scrambling, or him throwing a touchdown pass to win. Whatever it takes to win, he will do it.

“If you look at some of the drives, even the first touchdown today, we had two penalties we had to overcome. Those are tough, but we always seem to find a way when we need to get it done. And to see that run tonight [on third-and-19], most quarterbacks would have tripped on themselves and fell down. And he’s out there bouncing off defensive linemen, linebackers breaking tackles just to get a first down and give us a chance. It’s pretty special.”

The only quarterback with more rushing touchdowns this year than Winston’s five, which is tied for the most in Tampa Bay history by a QB, is Newton, who has seven, in addition to 26 TD passes in leading the Panthers to a 12-0 record this season.

“I think he’s a ball player,” Smith said. “I think he can throw the ball. When you say the look you would like for the quarterback throwing the ball – to me, Jameis. Tell me a better running quarterback in the league right now than Jameis Winston. After that run, I’d say he’s a pretty good runner, too. I think he fits the profile. Right up until the end there was confidence that he had that we can go down and score again.”

Winston’s dramatic, 20-yard scramble to pick up a necessary first down on third-and-19 with the game on the line may very well be the best and most important play in Tampa Bay thus far this year.

“You can do anything you put your mind to,” Winston said. “And when you have guys like Demar [Dotson], who hasn’t played the whole year – hasn’t played the whole year, got hurt during the preseason – and he comes out there and fights his tail off, that makes a young guy want to go out there and fight for him.

“That’s what drives me – the guys in the locker room that keep fighting and don’t give up. Because if they don’t give up, I’m definitely not going to give up. And when they do give up, I’m going to be the first one to pick them up, put them on my shoulder and take them that way.”

For 40 season the Bucs have been playing football, and for 40 years they have been looking for a franchise quarterback. While it isn’t written in stone and guaranteed that Winston will ultimately be that player, have you ever felt more promise and hope in a Bucs rookie quarterback? Neither had this organization until Sunday.

Winston has the Bucs on his shoulders right now and his inspiring play on Sunday was just a sign of the special things this unique ball player has in store for us in the weeks, months and years to come.