In Friday’s one-liners, we shared Buccaneers seventh-round pick Michael Smith’s belief that he’s in the thick of the battle to be the team’s starting running back this season.
Smith’s flying solo on that front, although a little confidence is never a bad thing when you’re trying to earn a job on a professional football team. The fight is really between LaGarrette Blount and first-round pick Doug Martin. Blount’s rough 2011 season helped bring Martin to town, but coach Greg Schiano said that there are no favorites at this point in the process.
“I don’t have any favorites. You know I shouldn’t say that. I think Josh (Freeman) is the favorite to be quarterback,” Schiano said, via Pewter Report. “Most positions we will dish out the reps in an appropriate manner and then we will see where the chips fall.”
The Bucs gave a pretty good impression of what they thought about Blount when they traded back into the first round to select Martin with the 31st pick in the first round, an investment that is rarely made with the intent of staying with the status quo. Whatever the status of things now, Martin’s versatility should steer him to the lead role in Tampa over the long haul.