Bucs RBs: Start or sit advice in Week 2 fantasy football

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers might have the best offense in the NFL, but also might not have a running back who we can trust in fantasy football. Last wee we saw Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette split carries, but after a Jones fumble, it was all Fournette with a sprinkling of Giovani Bernard. Fournette ended up with 10.9 PPR points to Bernard’s 3.2 and Jones’ negative 0.6. How will the backfield play Week 2? We’ll take a look.

Fantasy Football analysis: Bucs RBs Ronald Jones, Leonard Fournette, Giovani Bernard

It will be difficult to take too much away from Week 1, as we just don’t know how much work Jones will get after his Week 1 fumble. He likely won’t be benched, as head coach Bruce Arians came out and said he was fine and would start:

Of course, on his weekly radio show, he said they were all starters:

This of course makes more sense, as Arians hasn’t had all that much allegiance to any one back, but he will want to get Jones going again so he can get past the fumble.

This week they play the Falcons, who gave up 111 yards rushing and a touchdown on 24 carries to the Eagles backs last week. That’s a decent 4.6 yards per carry and the Buccaneers could get out to a good lead in this one. We’d expect one back to end up with some fantasy value, but which one?

We saw “Playoff Lenny” take over after Jones missed time to an injury last season and run with the job. Arians is going to play the “hot hand” and Fournette may be that player coming out of last week. He did make an egregious drop that led to an interception, but Arians stuck with him and Tom Brady continued to target him.

Fantasy Start/Sit Recommendation

Sit Ronald Jones and Gio Bernard.

Start Leonard Fournette as a flex in most leagues.