During any championship, popular heroes are born in almost every corner of this path to glory. For the 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it is difficult to mention his participation in the Super Bowl without mentioning the running back game Leonard Fournette. He proved to be a key player in this last championship, earning the nickname “Playoff Lenny” thanks to his above-average production during the Tampa Bay playoff contests.
However, Fournette winning that title and a place in Tampa’s sports history almost never happened. As Rick Stroud’s Tampa Bay Times reports, the veteran back had a meeting with coach Bruce Arians at the end of the regular season and faced the possibility of being cut. Fournette seemed unhappy with his role behind titleholder Ronald Jones and was deactivated for the Buccaneers’ victory in Week 14 over the Vikings. The next day, he met with Aryans and faced a critical crossroads during his tenure in Bucs.
“I said, ‘This is your situation. It can change at the drop of a hat,'” Arians told Stroud of his meeting with Fournette. “But this is your situation. Or hug her or say, ‘Cut me off’. I said, ‘What do you want? Because this is a very special team that you are part of. I think you have a feeling for that. Just see if you can handle it to see what happens. ‘ And he did, and I’m very proud of him. “
After that meeting, the door opened for Fournette to jump into the initial rotation after Ronald Jones landed on the reserve / COVID list. With that opportunity on him, the defense performed admirably to end the regular season, which set the stage for the postseason. Jones suffered a quadruple injury before the Tampa Bay-Washington clash, again giving Fournette a nod and starting the “Playoff Lenny” legend.
Fournette totaled 448 yards of scrimmage and four touchdowns during the Buccaneers’ playoff race, including a performance at the Super Bowl LV, where he scored 89 yards running 5.56 yards per transport and a touchdown. He also hit all four 46-yard targets in the 31-9 victory over Kansas City.
If things had happened differently during that conversation with the Aryans, it is a curious “what if?” setting not only for the talented back, but also for Tampa Bay’s prospects of staying on top of the NFL mountain as Super Bowl champions.