Saints: What grade should Jameis Winston receive in Week 5 win?

Jameis Winston put up the best numbers of his New Orleans Saints career on Sunday afternoon and it helped propel the black and gold to a 33-23 victory and a 3-2 record on the year.

Even with Winston putting up his best numbers this season, it still wasn’t his best performance. His QBR from this game was 108.2, which is his second worse rating so far in 2021. He went 15-of-30 for 279 yards while throwing four touchdowns and one interception, losing a fumble, and getting sacked twice. He also showed some wheels, rushing for 26 yards on six carries.

The interception was bad but an image has come out from the play where Winston threw that pick and it’s amazing he wasn’t injured on the play, as it appears that Andrus Peat stepped on his foot. This explains why it looked like Winston threw the ball straight into the Washington defender’s hands.

The fumble was bad too, as Winston simply held onto the football too long. Protection was clearly breaking down and the pocket was collapsing and in those situations, the best thing to do is get rid of the football. Holding onto the ball was the worst thing Winston could do there and it definitely brought his grade down a bit.

What grade should Jameis Winston receive for his performance?

Despite the former No. 1 overall pick putting up the best numbers as a Saint, he made some bad mistakes in this game that could have come back to bite this team. Luckily, the defense pinned their ears back and were more aggressive in the second half and Winston was able to get the ball into the end zone enough to help get a win.

For his performance in the win over Washington, I’m giving Winston a B. He threw four touchdowns but one of those was a stroke of luck. The interception and fumble were blemishes on what would have been an otherwise good resumé so a B feels like an acceptable grade here.

How would you grade Jameis Winston this week?