What can fantasy owners expect from LeGarrette Blount after his Week 1 dud?

by Cameron Dark, guest contributor

If you’re a LeGarrette Blount owner, you learned a tough lesson last week about the risk you’re taking by starting him. He rushed just 5 times for 15 yards Sunday against the Lions, and was nowhere to be found in the second half, replaced by veteran Ernest Graham. The big question: is this the production Blount owners can expect from here on out?

We all know how great he looked last year, hurdling over defenders and breaking tackles on the way to the end zone. But it’s time to face facts: Blount is slow, a bad pass-catcher, and an even worse blocker. When the Bucs were down Sunday, Blount had no part in the offense because of his deficiencies in the passing game. He disappeared from the game early and killed his fantasy owners.

However, I have hope for the future. Detroit was able to gain an early lead in the game Sunday, which made the running game a bit irrelevant from the start. I don’t see this happening this coming week as the Bucs take on the Vikings, a much less explosive offense than Detroit. Plus, Tampa Bay HC Raheem Morris has expressed regret for not using Blount more, saying, “We have a weapon in Blount, we want to be able to run the ball with him… Maybe we went to it (the two-minute offense) too early.”  It’s clear that he wants to get Blount more involved in the offense than he was Week 1, and that won’t be a hard task to achieve. Blount himself has stated that he wants more involvement in the offense and QB Josh Freeman has said Blount is ready for an increased workload. All these things point toward a positive trend in Blount’s fantasy production.

This still doesn’t change the fact Blount will be off the field in 3rd-down and two-minute situations for the time being. The Bucs have made it clear that Earnest Graham is the guy in passing situations. Tampa has more confidence in Graham right now, and rightfully so.  But they have also expressed a desire to get Blount more involved in the two-minute offense, with Morris saying, “…obviously we are going to try to get him in there a little bit more,” and Freeman saying, “…LeGarrette is a hard-working guy, and I know that he is going to find a way to become a weapon in those sorts of situations.” These are encouraging notes for the future, but don’t expect much involvement when the offense becomes fast-paced from the infamously slow Blount – at least not anytime soon.

Bottom line, Blount has a nice matchup this coming week against Minnesota.  And you should be willing to give him a second chance.  Blount will become scarily irrelevant, though, when the Bucs are playing from behind, so make sure to play your matchups well. Certainly hold onto him and don’t lose the faith, but you might want to rethink your enthusiasm a little if you were a big Blount believer heading into the season.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2011 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.