Jameis Winston has been in the headlines for a number of reasons since he burst onto the scene as quarterback at Hueytown High School and later at Florida State and in the NFL, none more hilariously than when he was cited for “shoplifting” $32 worth of crab legs from a Tallahassee Publix supermarket in 2014.

Winston ended up serving 20 hours of community service and was temporarily suspended from the FSU baseball team after the incident, which launched a thousand memes on social media. At the time, it was widely implied that Winston “took the fall” for a long-standing arrangement between Seminoles athletes and local businesses, in which they could accept food and other merchandise without paying for them.

Winston — the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner who played last season with the Cleveland Browns — was asked about the incident during an appearance on Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” podcast Wednesday. And while he didn’t come right out and say he took those crab legs nearly 11 years ago with the understanding they would be free, he didn’t deny it, either.

“I just want to educate everyone about the new edition of NIL and the things it allows our young athletes to do or not to do,” Winston said, a grin spreading across his face all the while. “Before NIL, if you did anything illegal (by NCAA rules), you would get suspended or you would lose your … eligibility and your career would be over.

“So I don’t condone anything bad happening from a collegiate athlete, that was done through 2016 or before that. But when NIL started, a lot of opportunities and doors that were already open were re-opened with the birth of a collective saying ‘we’re gonna give you money.’ So that is the best political way that I could put that situation.”

Winston will likely never live down the crab leg incident, though he has begun to lean into it in recent years. He added that had NIL existed when he was playing at Florida State in 2013-14, he’d have been inundated with free seafood.

“I am grateful that the crab legs have provided me with so many opportunities to talk about crab legs, get crab legs thrown at me, and you know what, get free crab legs from (New York-based) Fulton Fish Market. That’s the biggest thing.

“That crab leg thing would have been … I would have had so many crab legs. I would have been a (spokesman) for crab legs.”