In the 2019 season Buccaneer Ronald Jones finally became an every game player. Look for him to step up to a much higher level in 2020.
If you scroll down any Buccaneers social media site you will inevitably run into many, many fans that don’t have much regard for our beast of a runner Ronald Jones. Oh sure there are believers here and there, scattered about.
The majority seems to be in clear belief that Jones is not going to be the guy to be our next great franchise running back. It’s been a while around these parts since we had a back that was a true threat.
There have been a few here and there that have had a good season or two (see Doug Martin, Errict Rhett, Earnest Graham, and Carnell Williams) but only a select few that could be considered franchise backs.
You could probably count on three fingers the number of true franchise backs the Buccaneers could reasonably claim in their history. Warrick Dunn, Mike Alstott, Ricky Bell, and that’s about it. Michael Pittman played in Tampa for six years, but he never broke a thousand yards rushing. His combined rushing and receiving yards were good for a couple years. More often than not he put up vanilla stats.
Pittman just doesn’t fit the franchise back definition in my opinion. Alstott never broke the thousand yard barrier either, but he was here longer, and well, he was Mike Alstott. I don’t think I need to explain it to Bucs fans. Just search his highlight videos if you never saw him play, and ’nuff said.