Bucs Becoming A Run Team?
October 12th, 2020
Has reason to smile.
Joe never expected to type the following before the season started: Are the Bucs starting to turn into a running club?
The Bucs are loaded in the passing game, but many of their top pass catchers are either done for the year or are on the shelf. Chris Godwin has been hobbled with a hamstring. O.J. Howard is out for the year. Scotty Miller is banged up. Mike Evans isn’t 100 percent.
Meanwhile, though it took Ronald over 30 NFL games to show up. His epiphany as a runner is the most pleasant surprise for the Bucs — at least in Joe’s eyes.
(If you truly believed RoJo doing what he is doing was a sure thing, then why did the Bucs draft a running back on the second day of the draft and sign two free agent running backs?)
Joe maintains the Bucs screwed themselves when they quit feeding RoJo the ball at Chicago. The guy was having a phenomenal game. And the Bucs pulled the ball out of his hands. Shameful!
For the longest time, JoeBucsFan.com prized columnist Ira Kaufman has been kvetching that the offensive line of the Bucs cannot run block. Well, check out these quotes from RoJo after Thursday’s loss.
“The O-Line did a great job again getting [a] push and making it easy,” RoJo said. “Again, we just have to score points in the red zone and come away with more points overall.
“That’s the object – score more points than them – and we didn’t get it done.”
How RoJo has developed in the past couple of games isn’t the full story. He’s become excellent running up the middle like a fullback, as well. And this is from a guy that primarily was an open-field runner at USC.
So with all the injuries to receivers, have the Bucs transformed from a pass-happy team to one that can play ground-and-pound and win games?
October 12th, 2020 at 10:14 am
Run rojo run.
October 12th, 2020 at 10:22 am
The guy is big and strong, and quick as a burp. It would be an oddity if he weren’t at least a decent running back
October 12th, 2020 at 10:29 am
In spite of everthing going on with this team, they are on the right track, and now ROJO looks like he has arrived. We shall see, but it is a good thing to have 2 legitimate RB’s. Going to make life easier for Brady and the offense as a whole. GO BUCS!!!!
October 12th, 2020 at 10:34 am
It would be a great thing if this team returned to the Alstott-Dunn mentality.
October 12th, 2020 at 10:38 am
These next 2 games will not be easy, and ball control will keep the ball away from the other teams, as well as give our defense a rest.
Coaches often do stupid things, like we did in Chicago.
Last night, all Minnesota needed to do was kick an easy field goal against Seattle for a win, or at least a tie, because that would have made it an 8 point game. Instead, Minnesota went for it on 4th down, and were stopped by the Seahawks, who marched down the field, and beat Minnesota on a last second TD Pass.
October 12th, 2020 at 10:48 am
Joe-
He showed up last year pretty well when given the opportunity.
He had 11 games with 11+ carries. Had a 4+ ypc average in 5 of them and a 5+ypc in 4.
He had 6 games with 12+ carries. Had a 4+ypc in 4 of them and a 5+ in 3 of them. The other 2 he was over 3.5.
He got yards when given touches for the most part. The biggest problem was that he only averaged a little over 10 carries per game. Maybe it was his fault for not showing enough in practice or not being a consistent pass blocker, but he showed it in games. (Side note, in all 16 games, barber only averaged 4+ ypc 1 time; 8 carries for 40 yards.)
October 12th, 2020 at 10:59 am
That 12 lbs of muscle totally paid off. He’s banging guys at the LOS and goes on to get good yardage. Lol. Read that last sentence back to myself and laughed.
October 12th, 2020 at 11:04 am
Godlovesbucs don’t waste your time joe gotta push his narratives
October 12th, 2020 at 11:06 am
Where is Jameis’s mom, Loretta , to weigh in here ? NDOG where are you ???
October 12th, 2020 at 11:32 am
As long as Arians and Bryon are calling plays we will never be a running team. That was extremely evident on Thursday night. No matter how well we run the ball in a particular game they will never fully commit to it.
October 12th, 2020 at 12:07 pm
Meanwhile, though it took Ronald over 30 NFL games to show up. His epiphany as a runner is the most pleasant surprise for the Bucs — at least in Joe’s eyes.
This is BS…..it’s not that he simply showed up…..they are finally handing him the ball…
He only averaged 10 carries per game in 2019….this year 15…….
That is the primary difference….the more carries he gets, the stronger he is.
October 12th, 2020 at 12:24 pm
It’s a shame the Bucs don’t have a play caller or play design that is imaginative. If he’s being that up the gut I wonder how much damage he could do with some misdirection or maybe even the little sweep Brady use to run in New England where they’re in shot gun with the back right beside him. I’ve gotta think that getting Rojo in space one on one with a defensive end is a win for us. But nope we’ll just continue to run it up the gut just as we do with our punt and kick returns. NO CREATIVITY
October 12th, 2020 at 12:26 pm
Hmmm very interesting indeed……
October 12th, 2020 at 12:30 pm
So we had an effective running game, we had Evans and we had Gronk yet we still couldn’t score in the red zone.
Very interesting indeed……
October 12th, 2020 at 12:40 pm
We got stumped to end the game. We can’t run the ball.
October 12th, 2020 at 12:41 pm
Joe what’s going on with Leonard Fournette is he still on the team he would give a real one two punch in the running game, we could sure use that the next two games.
October 12th, 2020 at 12:50 pm
Ball control & run game = less Rodgers & then you hit the play action
Sounds easy lets see if the can execute. They have not played a clean game yet
October 12th, 2020 at 3:32 pm
A run team? These jackasses ran 6 times in the second half
October 12th, 2020 at 4:04 pm
(If you truly believed RoJo doing what he is doing was a sure thing, then why did the Bucs draft a running back on the second day of the draft and sign two free agent running backs?)
So with all the injuries to receivers, have the Bucs transformed from a pass-happy team to one that can play ground-and-pound and win games?
You can truly believe and still make those moves as you’ve almost answered yourself. They loaded up on rbs in case of injuries. Unfortunately its hit the wrs and rbs.
October 12th, 2020 at 5:36 pm
Our young Rookie Running Back Vaughn has looked decent too… and RoJo is younger than him.. still growing in his body,mind and craft! Rojo’s Work ethic and desire to succeed is great to see!! Maybe he could teach our Left Tackle those traits??!
October 12th, 2020 at 5:48 pm
RUnning the ball is the least of our problems. Rojo has gotten better every year as a pro. What he needs to become an Alvin Kamara or Dalvin Cook type of back is to learn how to catch the ball and explode. His power is impressive. Out of SC he was noted to be a speed back. At this level his speed doesn’t appear to my eyes as elite but his power and grind is elite.
I still don’t know why our WR’s get hurt all of the time. I’m starting to believe that the WR position is overated. There are many teams that have multiple “B/C” talent WR’s that are doing better than the teams with the elite WR’s. Seattle sure spreads the ball out to many WR’s that aren’t household names. Likewise Green Bay isn’t loaded with stud WR’s and neither are the Colts or the Ravens and they are doing well.
I think its better to have 5 or 6 medium level WR’s that can rotate and stay healthy than to have so much money tied up in Evans or soon to be Godwin.
Get more speed at WR and less injuries.
October 12th, 2020 at 6:36 pm
Pound the rock is what I’ve been preaching and now all YOU PEOPLE need to do is sallow some pride and get Mr. 5,000 back here before all our recievers get killed from hits like the one in the CHI!!! HENNY AND HOG …get yo-self some!!
October 12th, 2020 at 7:23 pm
@Joe … Joe maintains the Bucs screwed themselves when they quit feeding RoJo the ball at Chicago. The guy was having a phenomenal game. And the Bucs pulled the ball out of his hands. Shameful!”
I’m still having trouble believing that YOU wrote that Joe. That’s the biggest story of the whole game IMO. Now in all fairness you should follow that up with an article on WHO pulled the ball out of his hands … BA or BL? Sure as heck wasn’t Todd Bowles or Tom Brady.
October 12th, 2020 at 8:50 pm
Get more imaginative on offense. Get rid of the of leftwich
October 12th, 2020 at 9:21 pm
More than anything else on the team, the coaches cost us that game. They should be ashamed for not running the hell out of this kid until the Bears stopped him. Yeah, our best receivers are hurt, but we had some healthy ones out there that could have done more and Brady could have done more as well.
If these coaches are so good, why are we committing so many penalties? The refs were horrible, but there were some legit dumba$$ penalties made by some players too. That to me is bad coaching and it’s happening for the second year in a row. Gotta shore that up Arians, since you are the big cheese dude and better than this bs. Gosh I’m still po’d. 😜