Leonard Fournette Is An Outlier – JoeBucsFan.com – Tampa Bay Bucs Blog, Buccaneers News

Worth the coin.

With the Bucs now getting squeezed badly by the salary cap, here is an interesting peek into roster management.

Marcus Mosher of the PFF Tribe decided to list the salaries of the top rushers for the winning team in each Super Bowl since 2009. On Sunday night, “Ferdie” Pacheco led the Chiefs in rushing and he makes less than $900,000.

So what does this have to do with Playoff Lenny? Well, Playoff Lenny is one of three running backs earning $2 million or more since 2009 who led the winning team in the Super Bowl in rushing. (Playoff Lenny earned about $7 million last season.)

Joe is guessing the moral to Mosher’s Twitter post is that it is better to spend cash on a lineman, defensive or offensive, then it is a running back.

This may be true, but one of Joe’s enduring memories of when the Bucs beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl was when the Bucs called for a Playoff Lenny run to the right and used Ali Marpet as a pulling guard. He was one of the lead blockers around the right side along with Tristan Wirfs.

It was midway through the third quarter and when Playoff Lenny turned the corner, Marpet and Wirfs were stomping ahead of Playoff Lenny. You could just see Chiefs defenders pulling up. They wanted nothing to do with those three, Marpet, Wirfs and Playoff Lenny.

The game was over right there. The Chiefs defense was waving the white flag. No mas!

Was Playoff Lenny overpaid? Hell no! But Joe gets Mosher’s point. More often than not a solid running will come up large in big games, and he won’t break the bank.

Take a look at the leading rusher from the last 14 Super Bowls and their base salary: pic.twitter.com/sBC97Upzh0

— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) February 13, 2023