Hello again, Bucs fans! How was your commute to work? Mine was short.
And so we begin another strange week of work, but there is one thing you can count on, at least during the month of April: Daily Bucs Trivia! All month, I'll be posting a trivia question about your favorite team near the beginning of every workday, then revealing the answer here and on Twitter in the afternoon. There's no prize, just the pride you'll get from knowing your team and its history well. And this isn't multiple choice; you'll have to figure out the answer for yourself. Today's question is a little different in that all the answers are right there in front of you; you just have to match them up.
Today's question involves the statistic of yards-per carry. When you see rankings of statistics that involve averages, like this one, rather than merely counting numbers, like rushing yards, you generally use a minimum number of occurrences to determine qualifiers. For instance, to qualify for the league lead in yards per catch you have to have at least 1.875 receptions per game played by your team. At the end of a 16-game season, that's 30 catches needed to be considered.
And that's why your 2019 leader in yards per reception was the Los Angeles Chargers' Mike Williams, with a mark of 20.43 yards per catch. (By the way, Mike Evans was seventh at 17.27 yards per catch.) If you remove the minimum restriction, the yards-per-catch leader in 2019 would be the wonderfully named Olamide Zaccheaus, who caught all of three passes for the Falcons last year. One of those was a 93-yarder, which is how he ended up with a per-catch average of 38.3 yards.
Similarly, last year's qualifying leader in rushing average was league MVP Lamar Jackson, with a mark of 6.85 per tote. Remove the qualifier – which is 6.25 carries per game or 100 in a 16-game season – and your leader becomes a different Raven, safety Anthony Levine, who used a 60-yard dash on a fake punt to finish with an average of 31.0 yards on his two carries.
That's the gist of our match-up question today. Below I have given you nine names of former Buccaneers and 10 different minimum requirements to qualify for yards per carry. You have to figure out who goes with each minimum.
Bucs Daily Trivia Question, April 13:
Can you match up which player would be the team's all-time leader in yards per carry at each of the different minimum number of career carries?
The reason there are nine players and 10 categories is that one of the players is the answer to two different minimums. So here are your items to match:
Players (listed in alphabetical order)
Reidel Anthony
LeGarrette Blount
Josh Johnson
John Lynch
Doug Martin
Michael Pittman
Vinny Testaverde
Jameis Winston
Steve Young (the quarterback, not the offensive tackle)
Minimum Carries to Qualify
1
10
25
50
100
150
200
250
500
1,000
Come back at 4:00 p.m. ET for the answer!
Answer: Below is each minimum and the player who would be the team's all-time leader in yards per carry at that qualifier.
1: John Lynch (1 for 40, 40.00 avg.)
10: Reidel Anthony (13 for 151, 11.62 avg.)
25: Josh Johnson (37 for 254, 6.86 avg.)
50: Steve Young (114 for 658, 5.77 avg.)
100: Steve Young (114 for 658, 5.77 avg.)
150: Vinny Testaverde (172 for 905, 5.26 avg.)
200: Jameis Winston (248 for 1,144, 4.61 avg.)
250: LeGarrette Blount (426 for 1,939, 4.55 avg.)
500: Michael Pittman (798 for 3,362, 4.21 avg.)
1,000: Doug Martin (1,150 for 4,633, 4.03 avg.)
Like the aforementioned Levine, Lynch got his one career carry on a fake punt, in his case against Seattle in 1996. The ball was snapped directly to him as the "personal protector" and he shot through a hole in the line to break into the open. The man who tackled him to prevent a touchdown is another good bit of Bucs trivia, as it was none other than future Buccaneer Joey Galloway.
Anthony, of course, was a wide receiver who got the occasional end-around. The middle ranges are dominated by quarterbacks, which makes sense. Most quarterbacks don't rack up a lot of carries but when they do scramble they can get yards in big chunks. Martin is the only player in franchise history to record at least 1,000 carries and crack the 4.0-yard average. Warrick Dunn appears to join him when the number is displayed with a single decimal point but his career average with Tampa Bay was 3.97.
