Doesn’t need extra snaps.
Hey, even a broken clock gets it right twice a day.
The notorious PFF tribe, inventors of the game of football and supreme arbiters of the sport — just ask them — came out with a logical explanation, sort of, as to why Bucs running back Sean Tucker was on the field for much of the first half on Friday night.
Joe typed an article about this and Joe wasn’t too happy. Why keep Tucker on the field? He’s a valuable cog in the Bucs running attack and Joe did not see any reason why he should have been subjected to additional hits.
For what reason? The Bucs don’t have enough tape on the guy?
Well, Nathan Jahnke didn’t exactly have an excuse, but he did have a plausible explanation as to why Tucker played so much in the first half of the Bucs’ first worthless preseason game against the J-E-T-S… Jets, Jets, Jets.
Seems, per Jahnke, the Bucs were shorthanded with running backs.
However, the Buccaneers have only five running backs on their roster. Every other team outside of Tampa Bay and the Las Vegas Raiders has at least six. Teams typically use at least four running backs over the course of a preseason game, but with Irving and Gainwell resting, Tampa Bay had only three available. That context helps explain why Tucker, despite entering his fourth season, was still on the field alongside undrafted rookies.
OK, that makes sense, but still: Why not have Kadarius Calloway and Josh Williams take the bulk of the carries? Williams is a bubble player with something to prove and Calloway is basically camp meat with much more to prove.
Those guys could use the snaps a whole lot more than Tucker needed.