TAMPA, Fla. ― Now it’s Playoff Lenny or nothing for the Bucs.
Leonard Fournette, who sustained a hamstring injury that put him on crutches during Sunday’s 9-0 loss to the Saints, appears to be headed to injured reserve and done for the final three games of the regular season.
The Bucs are hopeful to get Fournette back for the postseason. But to add depth at the running back position, they signed 29-year-old Le’Veon Bell on Tuesday.
Bell, a three-time Pro Bowl player who is joining his fourth team since the start of the 2020 season, rushed for 83 yards and two touchdowns in five games with the Ravens this season. He averaged only 2.7 yards per attempt and didn’t show the burst that allowed him to rush for at least 1,200 yards in three different seasons with the Steelers earlier in his career.
Bell’s best game was Week 9 against the Vikings, when he rushed for 48 yards. But he didn’t total more than 18 rushing yards in any of his other four appearances.
The bulk of the rushing load will now fall on Ronald Jones, who was the Bucs’ starting running back and headed toward a 1,000-yard season in 2020 until COVID-19 forced him to miss two of the final three regular season games. He suffered a quad injury in warmups prior to the wild-card game at Washington and Fournette took over, averaging more than 100 total yards per game in the postseason.
Jones will get the same opportunity to replicate Fournette’s late-season effort.
“It’s his time now to do what happened for Leonard last year when (Jones) got hurt,” coach Bruce Arians said. “I’ve got all the confidence in the world. He ran great. Caught the ball good. I think going forward, it’s his job right now.”
