Ward should bounce back and have a productive 2010 There are alot of people out there who try to paint the ‘bust’ word on Derrick Ward, and that is simply put, plain wrong. If you just take a look at the whole body of work, the addition of Ward did not go as expected. Only 409 yards on a season does not an upper echelon free agent make. But there are MANY MANY MANY factors that you have to take into account when you consider the case of Mr. Ward. We remember here on Bucstop.com, that numbers are not the basis of the game of football. Numbers do not TELL a story, they are the adjectives if you will that add color to a story. Tampa Bay Buccaneers were a team that won only 3 games last year, and found themselves behind by two or more scores early in a number of games. Five to be exact, and you have to figure that being down by 17 points is going to change the complexion of the running attack of an NFL Club. Then you have the re-emergance of Cadillac Williams, who was a fantastic feel-good story of 2009. Williams finished with a 3.9 per rush average, but Ward was not that far behind with a 3.6. Then you have the disaster that was the Jeff Jagodzinski firing fiasco and subsequent fudging of the offensive system which included Switching to a Zone blocking scheme, telling O linemen to lose weight, then the abandonment of said system and new instructions to gain weight, Injuries to the Fullback position and you can start to see that the Book on Derrick Ward is hardly even close to having one chapter written yet? When we look at split stats, a different picture starts to emerge; like a 3.9 rushing average in the month of December, or a 4.3 average in October. Ward had 5.7 and 5.2 averages in games against the Panthers and Cowboys respectively. Ward also had some nice individual runs, like a 28 yarder vs the Eagles, a 25 yarder against the Seahawks, and a 22 yarder in week one against the Cowboys. The bottom line is that its going to take another look to figure out whether Derrick Ward is going to be looked at as a contributor in the Buccaneers locker room in 2010. I see no reason why Ward cant be expected to be a major player in the Bucs turning around their fortunes.
