This is quite the fun throwback.
Buccaneers' 347-pound Vita Vea was an absurdly dominant high school running back originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
It's often entertaining to take a look back at the high school stats of NFL players. They're usually quite dominant, sometimes in a way that's hard to believe.
But a look at what Vita Vea did in high school is particularly surprising.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 347-pound defensive tackle was chosen by ESPN as the Bucs' top candidate to be a two-way player if every team followed the Travis Hunter lead.
There were not a lot of nose tackles chosen for this.
Vea's case makes sense, though. In high school, he was a dominant running back.
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As a senior, Vea carries the ball just 47 times, but he averaged 12.3 yards per carry and got into the end zone for 13 rushing touchdowns.
That ability has translated just a tad to the NFL. Vea is the heaviest player to score a touchdown in league history. That moment came very quickly, when in 2019 he caught a 1-yard touchdown pass.
Apparently Vea has the hands required of him, as well.
It's not something that's going to happen, at least not fully. Maybe the Bucs stick Vea in the backfield in a jumbo formation again, and maybe he even gets the ball.
But in an alternative universe, maybe Vea would be doing both.
And who wouldn't want to see Vita Vea play running back and get the ball over and over again? Sounds like an absolute blast.
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