Winston could set Bucs’ career TD record in ’17

TAMPA — How often can a player reset an NFL franchise’s career passing record before his 24th birthday? Jameis Winston has a shot to do that with the Bucs this fall.

Winston is entering his third NFL season, but his promising start — combined with the Bucs’ middling quarterback history — could get him the team’s career passing touchdown mark when he’s still only 23 years old.

Winston has thrown for 50 touchdowns in his first two seasons, so to pass Josh Freeman’s franchise mark of 80, he’d need 31 this year, which of course would reset the Bucs’ single-season record of 28, set by Winston this past year. But with the Bucs adding receiver DeSean Jackson and drafting tight end O.J. Howard and so on, it’s certainly possible for the upcoming season.

To have a franchise record of 80 touchdown passes is impressively low — every other NFL team, even those that started decades after the Bucs, has at least one passer with at least 124 touchdowns. The next closest is the Houston Texans, who didn’t start playing until 2002 and have 124 from Matt Schaub. The only other NFL teams without at least 150 are relative newcomers in Carolina (Cam Newton has 136) — and Jacksonville (Mark Brunell has 144). Nine teams have gotten at least 300 touchdowns from one quarterback — Tom Brady’s 456 with the Patriots edge Brett Favre’s 442 with the Packers for the most with any team.

Winston in time may collect all the Bucs’ passing records — he’s seventh already in passing yards with 8,132 and could break Vinny Testaverde’s career mark of 14,820 in 2018 if he stays healthy, and should move into the top five this season.

One more cool (if dubiously low) career record that could fall this season — Winston and Mike Evans need only 10 touchdowns to become the Bucs’ most prolific career TDpass combo. They have 15 in their two seasons together, and the franchise record (somehow) is just 24, set by ... Josh Freeman and Mike Williams. As was the case with the 80 touchdowns, the 24 is the lowest for any NFL team’s record — the closest is the Bears, who have a record of 29, set by Sid Luckman and Ken Kavanaugh from 1940-50.

The NFL record for a passing combo is 112, set by the Colts’ Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison, but that’s an ambitious goal for any QB and WR.