By the time Jameis Winston

takes another snap in a NFL game Jacquizz Rodgers Jersey , the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have a better idea of how much the young quarterback's suspension for violating the league's personal conduct policy will impact the team's playoff hopes.Opening on the road at New Orleans, then returning home to face defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia and AFC heavyweight Pittsburgh figured to be challenging enough even before Winston was disciplined for touching a female Uber driver inappropriately in 2016.The Bucs consider themselves fortunate to have Ryan Fitzpatrick, entering his 14th season, filling in.Nevertheless, facing the Saints, Eagles and Steelers without their starter will put additional pressure on a talented group of receivers and an overhauled defense to carry the team until Winston is eligible to return in Week 4 against the Chicago Bears."I don't want this to be about me," Winston said on the first day of training camp, the last time he spoke publicly about his suspension. "I want it to be about us getting better and us heading into this season with a mission to go 3-0."By all accounts, Winston has done everything the team has asked him to do during camp, accepting working with second- and third-stringers in practice and preseason games while trying to lead from behind the scenes."Jameis has been great. There hasn't been a change with him in terms of the way he's attacking the game, the way he's been in the meeting rooms, the amount of time that he's putting in," Fitzpatrick said. "He's been awesome."The 24-year-old who's thrown for 11,636 yards, 69 touchdowns and 44 interceptions since entering the league as the first overall pick in the 2015 draft also played well in the preseason, completing 73 percent of his passes with zero turnovers."I think performance-wise you would have to give Jameis an 'A' for the preseason," coach Dirk Koetter said."I think he handled it well, I think he performed very well and I think he did a really good job of working on things he needed to work on," the coach added."Obviously, we've beat (the suspension) enough. The situation is what it is. Wish it wasn't that way, but it is. We're going to miss him when he's gone and we'll be glad when he gets back."Here are some other things to know about the Bucs:PLAYOFF DROUGHTThe Bucs haven't made the playoffs since 2007. The only team with a longer stretch of futility is Cleveland, which hasn't earned a berth since 2002. Last year's 5-11 record was a major disappointment, coming on the heels of a 9-7 finish the previous year. After a 2-1 start, team lost 10 of 13 to sink to the bottom of the NFC South.WELCOME JPPRebuilding the defensive line was a major priority after finishing last in the NFL with 22 sacks and also ranking 32nd in pass defense a year ago. Koetter and general manager Jason Licht bolstered the front by trading for edge rusher Jason Pierre-Paul and signing end Vinny Curry and tackles Beau Allen and Mitch Unrein in free agency. The Bucs also drafted tackle Vita Vea in the first round, though a calf injury sidelined him most of training camp.Pierre-Paul had 58陆 sacks in eight seasons with the New York Giants, including 16陆 in 2011. The Bucs haven't had a player with 10 or more in a season since Simeon Rice in 2005.TALENTED BUNCHRegardless of who's at quarterback, the Bucs feel they have as good a collection of receivers as any team in the league. Mike Evans is one of just three players in NFL history 鈥?along with A.J. Green and Hall of Famer Randy Moss 鈥?to begin a career with four consecutive 1,000-yard seasons receiving. DeSean Jackson, at 31, is still one of the league's top deep threats, and young receivers Chris Godwin and Adam Humphries have been productive, too. Add tight ends Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard to the mix, and there are plenty of options in the passing game. "We can compete with the best of them around the league," Evans said.SEEKING BALANCEImproving the running game has been another point of emphasis. The Bucs ranked 27th among 32 teams a year ago in rushing offense, with Payton Barber leading the way with 423 yards and three touchdowns. It was the fourth time in the past five seasons that Tampa Bay's leading rusher gained fewer than 600 yards. Barber enters the season as the likely starter, however Ronald Jones II was drafted in the second round and will get an opportunity to make a difference.CHAMPION'S MENTALITYThe Bucs have missed the playoffs 10 consecutive seasons and haven't won a postseason game since their 2002 Super Bowl run. Among the new arrivals, though, Pierre-Paul won a NFL title with the Giants and Curry and Allen helped the Eagles win last season's crown. "My biggest thing I'm telling everyone," Curry said, "is winning is contagious." Football Outsiders recently completed their 2018 ALEX: Season Review. As completion percentage becomes more and more meaningless in today’s NFL, I think ALEX can fill part of that role quite nicely. In short, ALEX stands for Air Less EXpected. It measures how aggressive a quarterback is on third downs - in other words, in situations where the offense must convert to stay on the field, who throws for the first down and who checks down? So, a quarterback who throws for nine air yards on 3rd and 8 would have an ALEX of +1 for that play, even if it fell incomplete. A quarterback who throws a two-yard screen pass on 3rd and 20 would have an ALEX of -18, regardless of whether the play converted or not. All of these plays are averaged out over the entire season. I find this useful because it tells us the difficulty of the offense Donovan Smith Jersey White , the aggressiveness of the quarterback, and who is doing the heavy lifting of the offense - the quarterback, the skill position guys, or the scheme itself?Let’s start with the defense, who managed to do something wild. First, let’s note that ALEX for defense is backwards - a negative ALEX is a good thing. After finishing with the worst ALEX in the NFL in 2017 at +3.1 (so, opponents would on average throw 3 yards past the first down marker last season), the Bucs finished first in ALEX in 2018 with a negative -1.7. The Bucs again finished with the worst defense in the NFL by DVOA, so how is this possible? It’s simple; they managed to get opposing offenses into the longest average yards to go on third down at 9.1. That allowed them to have the best Short % among all defenses in the NFL at 51.3 percent, which is the percentage of passes the defense forced short of the sticks. So on third downs they managed to get offenses to dump it off, and then rallied to the ball.The problem is two-fold: the Bucs only forced 119 third downs all year, third-fewest in the NFL and 42 less than the best defense, the Chicago Bears. They were so bad on first and second downs teams only rarely even had to face third downs. Secondly, they still allowed a conversion rate of 40.3 percent, 17th in the NFL, and were generally 56.5 percent worse than an average defense on these downs considering the depth and location of the throw. To sum up, rarely could they get into the situations Mike Smith wanted, and even when they could do so, they were out of position and couldn’t tackle. Yikes.But there’s good news on the way, hopefully:Here’s to hoping Bowles can fix what ails this defense. Note that it isn’t necessarily bad for a defense to have a high ALEX - it means you’re forcing longer, more difficult and therefore lower-percentage throws. Tampa Bay’s problem in 2017 was that they were allowing high conversion rates to go along with giving up long throws. Now, let’s look at the quarterbacks. Jameis Winston finished 4th with an ALEX of +3.0, and Ryan Fitzpatrick 8th with a +1.8 ALEX. Not too surprising, to be honest. Both are aggressive guys in a vertical scheme dependent on throwing the ball downfield with timing into tight windows. True to form, no one threw short of the sticks less than Winston (22.9 percent), while Fitzpatrick clocked in at 8th fewest (33.3 percent). Winston finished 2nd in the NFL in conversion rate at 50.6 percent and 4th in DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average) at 70.9 percent. Fitzpatrick finished 9th (45.1 percent) and 10th (53.9 percent), respectively. What Football Outsiders had to say about Winston might be the key to whether the Buccaneers succeed under new head coach Bruce Arians:We will have to wait and see how new offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich does in allowing Winston to be great at what he’s great at while also cutting down on situations where Winston gets himself into trouble. Personally, I’m hoping they steal a little bit from these guys to help supplement any vertical attack:Lastly, let’s look at these ALEX conversion rates by distance. They break it up into Short (1 or 2 yards to go), medium (3 to 6 yards), and long (7+ yards to go). In 2017 Winston finished 7th, 4th, and 4th, respectively in converting third downs - very good to elite to all levels of the field. In 2018 however, he was 26th short, 15th medium, and 1st in converting long attempts.Fitzpatrick on the other hand, was 11th-best in converting short, 1st medium, and 34th converting long. If only the Bucs could have somehow combined both quarterbacks last season. Then again, that guy might have thrown for 40 interceptions by himself. Still, if you’re wondering how the Bucs could decide to keep Winston, it’s for reasons like the ones above. He’s not just good but elite on money downs, and really always has been. Those guys don’t grow on trees, and over the course of the season he’ll give you far more scoring opportunities - as long as he doesn’t turn the ball over of course. Arians and Leftwich will have their work cut out for them finding ways to let him be aggressive while still limiting his turnovers and improving Tampa Bay’s points per redzone trip.