Doug Martin is being listed as questionable for Sunday’s game against the Rams but he is expected to play in the contest according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Lovie Smith has adamantly denied that Martin was benched in the Buccaneers opening week loss to the Panthers. Smith again has promised to stick to the ground game and has spoken to Martin.
Depending on what you have read this week you either believe that Martin left the game in the third quarter with a banged up knee or that the team benched him after he failed to block Luke Kuechy which led to a sack of Josh McCown taking the Buccaneers out of field goal range.
“I’ve talked about how important Doug is to us,” Smith insisted. “Just our running game in general, we were trying to get it going with all of our guys. Doug is our lead guy. We weren’t able to for whatever reason this first game, but we’ll stay committed to it.”
Martin totaled just nine yards on nine attempts. It goes without saying that the Buccaneers need Martin to return to the form he had during his rookie campaign when he averaged 4.6 yards an attempt.
