Rachaad White says he would beat out Bijan Robinson for Bucs’ starting job
If you’re going to succeed in the NFL, you’ll need truckloads of confidence, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Rachaad White isn’t lacking in that department.
Heading into his second NFL season, White is expected to be the Bucs’ No. 1 back, with the team likely to release veteran Leonard Fournette in the coming weeks.
That said, the Bucs have been a popular destination for Texas running back Bijan Robinson in plenty of mock drafts.
That’s just fine with White, though.
“I don’t have no problem with Bijan,” White told Scott Reynolds of Pewter Report. “The thing is, at the end of the day, what I have learned even though I’m young — [from] my agent and what people in my circle taught me — it’s a business, we all know that. Tampa Bay has to do what’s best for Tampa Bay. My coaches have to do what’s best for my coaches. Everybody has a little selfishness in them – you have to. Me, I’m selfless. You can draft Bijan, you can draft whoever, at the end of the day, I’m going to win that job, that’s just what I’ve always done.”
(AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
White knows that if given the chance to be the bell-cow back in Tampa Bay’s offense, he would make the most of it, putting up the kind of numbers we saw from other rookies last year who did get that opportunity.
“That’s what I always did with my track record, no matter what,” White said, per Reynolds. “No problem with Bijan or whoever Tampa drafts. Obviously you have to draft a guy, it’s the league. I don’t have any problem with that, the only problem I have is people saying, ‘We don’t know if he can be Kenneth Walker – if he could be a budding star.’ Kenneth and I are like close friends in real life, we talk a lot. I’m just saying if you give me 200 carries in a season – if you give me the opportunity and I don’t make anything out of it, then you can say we don’t know if he can be a budding star.”
Given their long list of more pressing needs elsewhere on the roster, it would be surprising to see the Bucs spend their top pick in the 2023 NFL draft on a running back, even one as talented as Robinson.
But if they did, White would have no intention of handing over the top spot on the depth chart.
