Behind the scenes with Jameis Winston, who had more fun than anyone at Super Bowl week

NEW ORLEANS — If there’s one thing you should know about Jameis Winston, it’s that he is always himself. Relentlessly. Unapologetically. Wholly.

He says he plans nothing. But he finds meaning in everything.

When he finished this season with 12 interceptions, he thought it was a sign to seek advice from Tom Brady, aka TB12 — the QB GOAT — about avoiding turnovers. And when he saw a pedicab in New Orleans on Thursday — he’s been working out lately on Peloton — he saw it as a sign to get on and start pedaling.

“There’s no such thing as coincidences,” Winston says often. 

I’m not quite sure what the world was telling him when he later ran that pedicab into a horse carriage. But that’s not really the point. The point is that he was fine and no humans or horses were hurt in the making of that film clip. 

The other point is that, in getting on that pedicab, Winston brought joy to everyone he passed on the street, singing “I Believe I Can Fly.” And he brought joy to everyone who caught that clip on social media.

“I know guys like Pat McAfee are here trying to have fun,” Winston said, “but I will have more fun than any of them.” 

No one had more fun during Super Bowl week in New Orleans than Jameis Winston. The 10-year NFL veteran spent four of those seasons with the hometown Saints, which is why he was the perfect person to serve as FOX Sports’ digital correspondent for the biggest event in sports. 

And make no mistake: He is as spontaneous as he looks in those viral clips.

“I told anyone who would listen: Jameis Winston is going to be a media superstar,” senior writer and “NFL on FOX” analyst Peter Schrager said. “And it’s not just the quirky and the eccentric. He loves football. He’s passionate. He looks you in the eyes. I think Jameis can do anything he wants. And I look at what he’s doing this week for FOX, just in a small snippet. This is just scratching the surface. … And it’s genuine. It’s not an act.”

Nothing is an act with Winston. And he has a serious side as well. He’s up at 4:30 a.m. every day to read the Bible. He helps his wife get their two sons off to school. By 9 a.m., he’s already completed two workouts, including the aforementioned Peloton. And he doesn’t eat a bite of food until 1 p.m. But as his day goes on, he embraces spontaneity. Hang out with him long enough and he’ll give you a handshake, a hug, a kiss. In one instance, he let a stranger on the street slap his butt. (Anything to spread joy, I guess.)

He told me that his objective for the week was just that: to spread joy. He also wanted to uplift the New Orleans community — and the country — because of what the city and country have been through recently. 

That’s actually why, before hopping on that bike, Winston took his production team to Café Du Monde. The café sits near St. Louis Cathedral and the river in the French Quarter and is a staple in the New Orleans community. Winston knows the general manager. He saw it as an opportunity to interact with people from all over the country.

“I’m a firm believer in starting your day off the right way,” Winston said. “I wanted to do something in the community. I just wanted to be out here showing the great city of New Orleans.”

The chef at Café Du Monde, upon learning that Winston would be there, practiced the art of making W-shaped beignets for the occasion. It’s an art that is harder than it looks. The pastry itself (fried dough with powdered sugar) is inarguably perfect, with a crispy outside and chewy inside — and just the right amount of sugar. And the beignets at Café Du Monde are world-famous.

Winston stood up at the café to lay down a challenge: He wanted to see if anyone could eat more beignets than him. And it’s no surprise that he immediately had six takers. But it wasn’t just the beignets that drew folks in. It was Winston, whose smiling positivity and outgoing nature seemed to make everyone feel comfortable. 

Within minutes, Winston, with powdered sugar under his eyes like eye-black, had served beignets to three adult men and a set of teenage triplet boys. They all sat down family-style at a set of tables in the back of the open-air restaurant. 

“I love family dinner, and I really wanna say grace. I wanna pray for y’all because I’m about to whoop your tail,” he said.

During the eat-off, almost every one of his competitors tried to recruit Winston, a free agent after playing for the Cleveland Browns this season. It’s been a bit he’s leaned into this week.

“I really don’t have no job,” Winston has told just about everyone from Saquon Barkley to 12-year-old strangers on the street. “So where should I sign?”

Between beignets, a New York Giants fan made the strongest push. And later, on his way out, that same fan told the QB: “See you in Jersey.”

Winston said he wanted to spend extra time interviewing the triplets — because of the Chiefs’ potential three-peat. Again, no coincidences when it comes to Jameis. 

Their father said the family needed to be somewhere, but he didn’t want to leave because his kids were having so much fun with Winston. “It’s too special to go anywhere,” he said.

When he finally said his goodbyes at the café, Winston found his way to a visitors’ information booth, where he hugged a woman who I was certain must have been a relative. She laughed as he chatted with her and kissed him on the cheek.

“I’m a people person. When I look someone in the eyes, they feel like they know me. They feel like we go way back, because I’m very open,” Winston said. “It’s my makeup. I grew up in a house of 20 people, sleeping four to a bed. We had people in the house from every generation, from newborn babies to grandmas and every age in between. So I’ve just been around so many people my entire life.”

At the end of his conversation at the information booth, he asked the woman her name. He’d never met her in his life. But he hugged her again and thanked her for her service to the city.

“In the Black community in New Orleans, we have a lot of cousins,” Winston said.

                                                                      *****

By the time Super Bowl Opening Night ended inside the Caesars Superdome, it was almost midnight, but the quarterback wanted to watch some film. He’d had producers in his ear all night, which he encouraged, because he’s used to having coaches in his helmet on game day and proactively seeks feedback and coaching. Winston applied the same work ethic from his QB experience to his new role, and he wanted to know how he did.

“A lot of people have tough transitions when they get out of their particular sport because they feel like they can’t use the same intangibles and the same principles that we develop at a very young age,” Winston said. “Man, I’m gonna be prepared for this [like it’s the NFL]. And if something else happens, I’m gonna be prepared to make the most of it, despite my knowledge or lack thereof.”

Winston didn’t want to rest. He wanted coaching. It was his manager who told Winston he could review the footage and the feedback in the morning — that he needed his rest before waking up at, you guessed it, 4:30 a.m. the next morning to do his Bible study.

On Winston’s first day in his new job as a broadcast personality, he got a W — but not without an interception or two. 

He’d brought plenty of joy to players on both the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs. Most smiled the second they saw Winston. Others couldn’t help but crack up when Winston started throwing W’s — in cookie form from a local bakery called JCB Creations — at the players on the podiums so that they could eat a W with the QB.

Winston also delivered from a viral sense, with an all-time record 40 million views for FOX Sports Social on Monday alone. There might not have been a better moment than when he had to toss three cookies at Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce to finally make a completion.

“You know someone always trying to intercept my stuff,” Winston said. 

His spontaneity is as much an asset to him as his quarterback mentality. On Saturday night, Super Bowl eve, he stepped off the stage of the Maison Jazz Club, where he’d sung for about two minutes — making up lyrics as he went. He was pouring sweat. He’d lost his voice from the week’s shenanigans. But he wasn’t tired. It was as if he was just getting started.

It’s always as if he’s just getting started.

Winston asked his producers for all the feedback they could give him ahead of Super Bowl Sunday. He wanted to take that information and spend time visualizing and meditating on Sunday morning, just like he does with his game plan on game days.  

“As a quarterback, we’re given a visual plan in terms of our plays,” he said. “We’re given a verbal plan in terms of what we want to happen conceptually, strategically. So [for this media role], I need a visual plan that I can study and prepare. That way, I can use my visual mind to prepare for what’s going to come.”

                                                            *****

Imagine having Jameis Winston as your physical education teacher.

And if you can’t decide if that sounds exhausting or energizing, you’re exactly right. It’s both.

But you know what Winston wanted it to be all about? It’s all about joy, baby.

Winston stood in front of a group of students who just so happened to have their P.E. period during the QB’s visit to St. Augustine High School in the Seventh Ward in New Orleans. He asked the kids to list the famous people who had attended their storied school. They started with NFL players Tyrann Mathieu and Leonard Fournette. 

But Winston didn’t want to talk about sports. He wanted to talk about Jon Batiste, the five-time Grammy Award-winning musician who will perform the National Anthem at Super Bowl LIX.

“You can only be who you are,” Winston said, quoting the artist.

It’s also, as it happens, the song Winston sings to his sons every morning.

“I bet y’all thought I wanted to talk about football,” Winston said. “I bet y’all thought I wanted to talk about baseball. We’re talking about life. We’re talking about energy.”

Before taking them out to play flag football, he made the students — all teenage boys — dance. Once on the field, he threw passes to the kids. And he made sure that, whether they caught the passes or not, they felt like they were learning lessons. 

“You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable,” Winston told one of the shyer kids, who eventually did start dancing.

Those moments felt so genuine because Winston didn’t hold back with the students. The kids picked teams, and when it came down to the two final players, Winston made them do a Moss Drill, fighting for a jump ball. 

“I didn’t think you were going to catch that anyway,” he said. Winston didn’t hold back much on his throws either. He was whipping the ball around to the students who, for the most part, hauled in the catches. One student did take a ball to the face, however.

“Some of you are going to ride the bench,” Winston said. “I’m riding the bench. It ain’t no fun.”

He kept giving grief to one of the varsity football players, who couldn’t seem to bring in a touchdown catch. He kept feeding the ball to the two kids who got picked last. And he even caught a pass from a student who showed one hell of an arm. But when a mistake crept into their play?

“If y’all mess this up, all y’all getting benched,” Winston said.

Even after that, almost every student left the field having caught a touchdown pass from Winston.

Later in the visit, he stood in front of the football team in their meeting room and spoke for about 15 minutes. He shared life lessons and encouragement. Near the end of his talk, he asked: “How many of you know you have success in you?” 

Every hand went up.

The inspiration didn’t come without a challenge.

“Are we watching Megan Thee Stallion twerking videos, or are we watching Kobe Bryant greatness videos?” Winston asked. “[Make sure] I’m putting in the effort of what I’m going to do each day.”

                                                                    *****

It was a moment of synchronicity when Winston danced to the six-person brass band on set for FS1’s “The Facility.” Winston and analysts Emmanuel Acho, LeSean McCoy, James Jones and Chase Daniel bounced to the music together as the show returned from a commercial. 

More joy. 

McCoy eventually asked Winston something that I’d been wondering about: What about a second chance for Winston as QB1?

There are seasons in Baker Mayfield’s career where his stats looked comparable to Winston’s. The same is true of Sam Darnold’s stats. If those guys can figure out how to play quarterback at an elite level after years of struggling, why not Winston?

He knows he has to earn it. And he knows the mistakes he’s made in the past.

“I did not develop the trust in [former Saints coach] Dennis Allen, because he did not trust me in the way I started off the game. I didn’t allow him to trust,” Winston said. “I think the key for me is just to find a way to win games. People talk about turnovers. People talk about yards. The only stat that matters is: ‘Man, can you come in here and win some games?’ And that’s one thing I have not been eating a lot of is these W’s in this league.” 

A source close to Winston told me he’s seeking a QB1 role for the 2025 season. It’s just a question of whether he’ll find the right fit. He loves the Browns, and he wants to change the culture there, which he may actually have a chance to do with starting QB Deshaun Watson having torn his Achilles tendon again in January. But of course, Cleveland picks second overall in the upcoming draft and could take a quarterback. 

There are other QB-needy teams out there — on Super Bowl Media Night, Barkley quipped to Winston, “I think New York needs a quarterback right now.”

So what about the Giants?

“I would go be anyone’s quarterback. I’ve got to get in the door,” Winston said. “I just focus on the opportunity. Give me the ball. Call some plays that you have seen me execute over the years and really dominate in my NFL career. Don’t get excited just because I have the ability to pick defenses apart. Stick to the plan. Let’s establish the running game. Let’s put the pieces around us. Let’s win football games.”

He’s 31 years old. He’s proven he has potential. In football. And in broadcasting. This is a man who won a Heisman. Who was the first pick in the NFL Draft. Who trended daily during Super Bowl week, and was breaking viewership records, even when he wasn’t one of the players in the game. 

At the end of the day, though, he might be most talented at putting smiles on people’s faces, and bringing the joy while doing it. 

Prior to joining FOX Sports as an NFL reporter and columnist, Henry McKenna spent seven years covering the Patriots for USA TODAY Sports Media Group and Boston Globe Media. Follow him on Twitter at @henrycmckenna. 

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