The Buccaneers placed 11 players on the active roster on the COVID-19 reserve list during the regular season and postseason, including running back Ronald Jones and linebacker Devin White. Four of those 11 players didn’t miss a game.
Bucs quarterback Tom Brady stayed healthy the entire season.
It took everyone to make that happen.
“I don’t think people understand how challenging this season really was,” running back Leonard Fournette wrote on theplayerstribune.com. “I mean, I had my own ups and downs trying to adjust to a new offense and really just finding my role. But we had ups and downs as a team, too. And what made it even tougher was that — and this is something not a lot of people realize.
“We had to socially distance just like everybody else. We had league protocols to follow. Family members to protect.
“And on top of that … none of us wanted to be the dude who got TOM BRADY sick!”
Fournette said the Bucs had no team dinners during the season, no card games on the charter flights, no outings on the road.
“We couldn’t do nothing, man,” Fournette said. “So we had to make sure we could find ways to still lean on each other and really just have fun and be ourselves. Because we knew that was what was going to make us successful.”