Tampa Bay Buccaneers rumors: Was Doug Martin benched?
By Josh Hill
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell short of winning their first game int he Lovie Smith era, but there are major questions fans are asking about the way the game was managed.
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Doug Martin exited the game early on after just nine carries with the team citing a lower leg injury as the issue. But Martin was apparently healthy int he fourth quarter but the Bucs refused to put him back out onto the field, instead favoring Bobby Rainey.
As pointed out by JoeBucsFan, the Buccaneers and Lovie Smith weren’t really definitive on why Doug Martin didn’t come back into the game with things on the line.
"“Doug did go down with a little minor injury there, so we had to make a change, and from there he was able to come back and he was ready to go,” Lovie said on Total Access on WDAE-AM 620. “Bobby had come and had given us a little bit of life, and as I’ve mentioned we want to play more than one running back throughout. So it was just a perfect time to keep both of them involved.”"
That’s a cop-out answer if there ever has been one and it’s troubling for Martin’s involvement moving forward. He had a terrible game, this is true, but Rainey fumbled the game away at the end and there’s a decent chance Martin may not have if he had been put in the same situation.
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