Jameis Winston explains the origin of infamous 'Eat a W' speech: 'I felt it was powerful'

Crissy Froyd

•
Jameis Winston explains the origin of infamous 'Eat a W' speech: 'I felt it was powerful' image

NFL quarterback Jameis Winston has had an up-and-down career. Winston was one of the most polarizing prospects at the position in recent history, and has settled in as a reliable backup.

But one thing that's talked about just as much as, if not more so than, Winston's play in-game itself is his "Eat a W" speech.

So, how exactly did all of that start?

Here's what to know about Winston's tradition. 

Jameis Winston explains the origin of 'Eat a W' speech

In a recent interview with "Pardon My Take," Winston revealed what is behind the "Eat a W" tradition.

"I've been eating W's since the beginning," Winston said. "It started a long, long time ago, and that's because my last name is W and the first four letters of my last name spells out 'wins.' Go and fact check me, it's probably right on Wikipedia."

 

 

It started with motivational speeches.

"It all stemmed from one of my favorite motivational speeches and it all surrounds about a bowl of, do y'all remember the soup? The alphabet soup"," Winston asked. 

The PMT group indeed did remember. Winston said he used to tell those around him that they were "scraping the bowl today."

"We're eating everything, and we're only looking for W's in the alphabet soup. There's a lot of different options out there, but we're looking for W's and we're eating all of the W's in the alphabet soup."

It all truly came together in the Big Easy with wide receiver DeSean Jackson, who Winston says is one of the worst players one can dap up.

"But this one game, ironically, you know, the true thing happened in New Orleans," Winston said.

Winston explained they had already had the whole alphabet soup conversation and that he took the W out of it ... quite literally.

"It went left when I started actually eating the W. And when I ate the real W, and the proceeded to dap up DeSean Jackson, I think that was the worst person to dap up ... the eye contact we made doing that, I think it was a powerful speech, it really was."

Winston and the Saints did not win that game, but they had the juice going into it.

Crissy Froyd

Crissy Froyd Photo

Crissy Froyd is a content producer at The Sporting News covering college football, the NFL and other sports. A graduate of LSU in 2021, she has nine years' experience writing about football across all levels, specializing in quarterback analysis and the NFL Draft. Her work previously appeared in USA Today, Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports, among other outlets.