Buccaneers running back LeGarrette Blount ended Sunday’s loss to the Lions with five carries for 15 yards. That lack of involvement in the offense made him mad enough to punch someone.
“I’m a play-maker on this team also, so I feel like I should be on the football field more,” Blount said, per the St. Petersburg Times. “We got away from our game plan. We got away from getting me the football.”
The Bucs definitely shifted their offensive approach as the game went on: Their first offensive play was a handoff to Blount, and he got three more handoffs on the Bucs’ next 13 offensive plays. And then he saw the ball once in the second half.
But the truth is, the Bucs’ offense was a lot better without Blount than with him. Early in the game, the offense was stagnating. Once they shifted to more three-receiver sets and allowed Josh Freeman to spread the ball around more, the Buccaneers finally started to have some success against the Lions.
Still, Bucs coach Raheem Morris said he thinks Blount might have a point.
“We have a weapon in Blount, we want to be able to run the ball with him,” Morris said Monday. “Maybe as a coach, I went too fast, I went too early to the two-minute offense. But I wanted to get something going, get something generated, get [Freeman] some confidence and get all those guys going. And it worked to the standpoint that we were able to get back into the game. . . . You can blame me for that, you guys can write coach stuck to the two-minute offense too early. But I was giving our offense a chance to get going and we got it going.”
So Morris has no problem with Blount wanting the ball more. And next week, he may just give him the ball more. Sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease.