James Winston didn’t get much notice before taking the field for the Saints to start the second half of their win against the San Francisco 49ers.
“Just get your helmet and go,” Winston said of the notice he received. “It was just like that. So I got my helmet, got prepared, started throwing, because we had the first possession in the second half. And that was that.”
Winston stepped in to replace starter Drew Brees who injured his ribs in the first half and helped the Saints secure a 27-13 win Sunday night in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
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“I am proud of him (Jameis Winston),” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “He led us to an important scoring drive. He led us to another field goal drive. The one thing that I would say with Jameis, too, is that he is extremely bright. The functioning and understanding what we are doing, he is someone that picks it up quickly.”
Winston, who played some last week in the Saints 38-3 blowout of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was 6-of-10 for 63 yards Sunday and said he felt like he was prepared to lead the New Orleans offense.
Brees said after the game he thought Winston played great.
“Listen, that’s a tough, it's a tough job, you know, especially when as elaborate as our game planning is on offense especially,” Brees said. “To come in and, and be able to execute that offense is very, very difficult, especially if you're just kind of coming in midstream. And haven't had a big chance to really get, you know, get all the reps and that kind of thing.
“And listen, I thought he did great. I thought he did great. I thought he had great command of the huddle and everything, kind of went off without a hitch. Obviously, nothing's perfect. But, I thought he made some great throws. I thought he made some really good decisions and obviously took advantage of the opportunities that were given out there.”
Winston said Brees was very helpful once he entered the game.
“He was going through the course of the game, like I would do on anytime, typically, when the offense finishes the drives we go over there and we look over the board,” Winston said. “This time since, you know, he wasn't playing, I was, I had the opportunity just to ask him some questions. See what he was seeing and just gather information from him and try to apply it out there on the field.”
Payton said the play calling had to change slightly during Sunday’s game, but more because of injuries at other positions rather than Winston.
“I think what impacted our play calling more than anything was when Tre’Quan (Smith) and Josh (Hill) went down,” Payton said. “That, all of a sudden now, there are some different things that you are doing with procedures relative to your blocking schemes.
“Jameis (Winston) was up to speed on everything that we were doing. Just as importantly at halftime, we were trying to arrange the personnel groupings to handle a lot of the stuff that we were doing in the running game.”
Overall Winston said he was just happy the Saints were able to pick up the win.
“I'm happy that my teammates had my back,” he said. “And they went out there and executed well, and things went our way.”