Bruce Arians still has faith in Ke’Shawn Vaughn’s future with the Buccaneers.
Ke’Shawn Vaughn had the breakout performance of his career yesterday in the win versus the Panthers. The run game was the main focal point of the depleted offense, and the Buccaneers were still able to move the ball well without Leonard Fournette.
Going forward, there should be no doubt that Fournette should remain the lead back, but there should be some question marks about who should shoulder the load over the next two weeks.
The Bucs have two games left against the Jets and the Panthers, and this would be a great time to try guys out in new roles to see what they can do, especially when considering the ease of the remaining schedule.
Vaughn should be one of the bigger stories to follow due to the fact that he outperformed Ronald Jones on a much smaller number of carrier. The sophomore back for the Bucs did have a terrible drop, but there is still case to be made that he played better as a complete back than Jones, and that could change the duties going forward.
From pure rushing stats alone, Vaughn led the Bucs in yards, yards per carry, and added a touchdown. Most of these yards came on a huge play that Vaughn broke off to give the Bucs some breathing room in the first half, and this play looked a lot more like his college highlight tape than what we have seen so far in his NFL career.
As a runner, Vaughn checked the box yesterday.
In the passing game, Vaughn is still a liability, just like Ronald Jones, but his abilities as a blocker were better. Even if the running is a toss up, Vaughn is at least more consistent at picking up blitzes than his counterpart.
Buccaneers fans weren’t the only ones to notice Vaughn on a day where he was able to outshine the starter. Bruce Arians had nothing but good things to say about Vaughn today in a post by The Pewter Report.
Arians’ reviews were glowing of the young back who looked like he was on the verge of being replaced, and if the coach feels this strong about Vaughn today, it seems more than likely that Vaughn will get more touches over the next two games.
This is not to say that Jones is a bad runner, but it is hard to ignore the distinct likelihood that RoJo will be out of Tampa at the end of the season. If this is the case, then Arians is making the right decision to build up Vaughn to see what he can do in a larger role as an evaluation for next season.
One way or another, we should be seeing more Ke’Shawn Vaughn over these final two games.
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