Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Ronald Jones II won’t be the starter for long

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will make a change at starting running back

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made a major move this week when they signed former Jacksonville Jaguars RB Leonard Fournette to a one-year deal.

The Buccaneers, who were in need of some help at the running back position, went out and brought Fournette in with the expectation that he would be a major contributor.

Despite the hype surrounding Fournette among fans, Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians met with the media after practice Thursday and said that the depth chart hadn’t changed. Ronald Jones II will be the starter during week 1 of the season when Tampa Bay travels to New Orleans to take on their NFC South rival- the Saints.

"“When you can get a player of that caliber—I got great reviews from people that know [Fournette] and who have coached him—he’ll fit right in, and we’ll see what role happens and how fast it can happen,” Arians said Thursday via Sports Illustrated. “But RoJo’s our guy. [LeSean McCoy] is ready for his role, so it’s just gonna be building roles as we go along and having enough quality players to finish this thing.”“It’s his job. Nothing’s changed for him,” referring to Jones."

Despite the ‘coach speak’ from Bruce Arians, it won’t be long before the Buccaneers make a change

No one is going to come in and start from Day 1 when they haven’t been in Training Camp.

Leonard Fournette is going to have to come in- and things are a lot more difficult now than in the past with protocols and testing- and he’s going to have to learn the system and a brand new play-book.

The Buccaneers play in just a little over a week.

Of course Bruce Arians is going to say that Ronald Jones II is the starter. It’s his job and nothing has changed for him. That’s all true for Game 1 of the season. That’s probably all true for the first few games of the season. But it won’t be long before Fournette and Jones II have defined roles in the offense and it will be Fournette who looks more like the starter, no matter what the official ‘depth chart‘ says on a week-to-week basis.

These two can be a dynamic RB duo that complement each other well, but Fournette is just on another level. He elevates the running game and can explode for those extra yards and those hard yards that Jones just hasn’t shown the capacity to be able to do as of yet.

Jones has a specific skill set that fits well in this offense and there’s no doubt that he’ll have a big season, but it won’t be long before we’re referring to Leonard Fournette as the ‘starter’ at the running back position.