The fantasy reality show that is the Buccaneers’ backfield is featuring yet another week of drama, as Ronald Jones had surgery on his fractured pinky and then hit the Reserve/COVID-19 list on Wednesday night. This comes after Week 14’s episode when Bruce Arians sat a healthy Leonard Fournette in favor of the decrepit Shady McCoy. Assuming RoJo is out this week, for this article’s sake, expect Fournette to be the early-down back and old man McCoy to assume the third-down duties that he owned in Week 14 after seeing Fournette drop about 50 balls over the past few weeks.
In the past, a pissed off Fournette typically benefits his fantasy owners.
“Just like every back — every back wants to touch the ball, and when those guys are not in there, they’re all pissed off,” assistant head coach/run game coordinator Harold Goodwin said. “That’s a good thing. At the end of the day, there’s only so many carries for so many guys. And at the end of the day, there’s a lot of guys, but there’s only one running back on the field, so they just gotta suck it up.”
Under Arians’ schizophrenic watch, Fournette’s season has been mostly blah, with a few solid games. He’s totaled 271 yards on 69 carries and added another 171 receiving yards on 28 grabs. However, he’s had a handful of recent drops that likely broke Tom Brady’s trust, resulting in the “emergence” of McCoy as the team’s pass-catching back.
Outside of his 103-yard, two-touchdown performance in Week 2, when idiots believed he should have started over Jones, who’s currently fourth in the league in rushing, he’s been one of the many fantasy disappointments on the Tompa Bay Bucs offense.
But as we all know, Fournette could redeem himself with his fantasy owners if he puts in a solid performance as the Bucs’ workhorse on Sunday. Arians claims Fournette is a “professional” (lol) and will have a short memory after last week’s benching, but the running back has had moments during his career where he’s basically given up if the situation isn’t to his liking.
The Falcons surprisingly have a solid run defense, but one would imagine 15 to 20 touches for Fournette as the team’s bell-cow. Volume is king in fantasy and Fournette owners should feel optimistic about inserting the pissed off running back in Week 15 lineups.
As a result of all of this, Fournette checks in at RB22 in The Wolf’s Week 15 Fantasy Rankings.
