“I Was Actually Able To Read A Stop Sign” – Browns QB Jameis Winston Says Getting LASIK Was A Game Changer

God bless Jameis Winston.

Say what you want about the quarterback, but in my eyes (and the eyes of many others), he’s a national treasure. During his time at Florida State, Jameis was incredibly accomplished, winning the Heisman Trophy in 2013 and leading the Seminoles to a national championship in 2014. Unfortunately, his success and winning ways didn’t directly translate to the NFL.

Though you can’t chalk up his NFL career as a total loss. Time and time again, Jameis has provided legendary, meme-able moments. Like the infamous clip of him “eating a W,” or the fact that he’s the only QB in NFL history to have a 30-30 season. Just to clarify, that’s 30+ touchdowns thrown… paired with 30+ interceptions thrown. Some people call the way he plays the “Jameis Winston Experience.”

After being the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2015 t0 2019, Winston has primarily been a backup since. He spent a number of season with the New Orleans Saints, and now, the 30-year-old finds himself backing up Deshaun Watson with the Cleveland Browns. Despite the fact that he’s a backup, he’s still one of the most electric players in the league.

Just watch this recent mic’d up clip that was released and tell me that Jameis isn’t the ultimate entertainer:

And just as he is entertaining on the football field, Winston is a very intriguing person off of it. One of the biggest stories that has surrounded Jameis over the years is his eyesight. He finally got LASIK surgery during his years with the New Orleans Saints, and as he describes it himself, it’s been life changing.

Which begs the question, or questions: How was he able to have so much success at Florida State not being able to see? And could his vision have caused some of his turnover woes in Tampa Bay? It seems as though the answers to both those questions are, “Who knows,” and “Probably so,” because Pat McAfee straight up asked Jameis about his eyesight, and Winston provided this answer:

“I wasn’t blind, but I’ll tell you what. LASIK is definitely a game changer. Just the fact that I was able to actually read a stop sign that was clear, read the street signs without using Apple maps or Google maps. It really helped me out with my depth perception.

A lot of times at Florida State, I was squinting to look at the scoreboard and typically we were up. Most of the time when I was squinting in Tampa to look at the scoreboard, I was trying to see if I could change the score a little bit. It really impacted my game just in terms of seeing the depth of linebackers, identifying pressure sooner and processing information faster.”

Jameis couldn’t read STOP SIGNS? Holy smokes… if he would have gotten LASIK as a Buccaneer, he may already have won a couple of Super Bowls by now. That might be a stretch, but it is wild to hear Jameis – an NFL quarterback – talk about how he really couldn’t see all that well during his best years of football playing.