During every championship run, folk heroes are born almost every turn on that path to glory. For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020, it’s hard to name their Super Bowl run without tackling Leonard Fournette’s play. He was an instrumental piece for this latest championship, earning the title ‘Playoff Lenny’ thanks to his above-average production during Tampa Bay’s playoffs.
Fournette who earned that title, and a place in Tampa sports history, however, never happened. Like Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reported, the veteran quarterback with coach Bruce Arians sat out the latter part of the regular season and hampered the possibility. Fournette was unhappy with his role behind starter Ronald Jones and was rendered inactive for the Buccaneers’ Week 14 victory over the Vikings. It was the next day where he met Arians and had a critical crossroads of his Bucs era.
“I said, ‘This is your situation. It could change in the blink of an eye, ‘Arians told Stroud about his meeting with Fournette. “But this is your situation. Embrace it, or you say, ‘Cut me.’ I said, “What do you want? Because you’re a very special team you’re part of. I think you have a feeling about it. Just see if you can hang around there to see what happens.” And he did, and I’m really proud of him. ‘
After the meeting, the door opened for Fournette to jump into the starting rotation after Ronald Jones landed on the reserve / COVID list. With the chance at him, the back performs excellently to end the regular season, which set the stage for the national season. Jones suffered four injuries that led to Tampa Bay’s clash with Washington, which gave Fournette the starting nod again and began the legend of ‘Playoff Lenny’.
Fournette scored 448 yards of scrimmage and four touchdowns during the Buccaneers’ playoff game, including a performance in Super Bowl LV, where he carved 89 yards at 5.56 yards per carry and one touchdown. He also scored all four of his targets for 46 yards in the 31-9 victory over Kansas City.
If things went the other way during the sit-down with Arians, it’s a weird ‘what if?’ a scenario for not only the talented fullback, but also the prospect of Tampa Bay standing at the top of the NFL Mountain as Super Bowl champion.