NFL
Why isn’t Antoine Winfield Jr. playing for the Buccaneers against the Falcons on Thursday Night Football?
Winfield Jr is one of five Bucs players who definitively ruled out of the Week 5 trip to Atlanta as injuries continue to stack up for Todd Bowles’ team.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers visit the Atlanta Falcons in this evening’s TNF matchup, kickstarting the Week 5 action. The two most in-form teams in the NFC South face off at Mercedes Benz Stadium.
The Bucs got their campaign off to a flying start serving the Commanders a 37-20 defeat in Week 1, and remain the only team to have beaten the NFC East leaders. That was followed by a 20-16 win in Detroit before a shock 26-7 reverse to Denver. They returned to winning ways last weekend, with a resounding 33-16 result in Philadelphia.
Top two in NFC South go head-to-head
The Falcons are in close pursuit but have looked less consistent. They are 2-2 having alternated victories and defeats from one week to the next although all of their games have been close. The campaign started with a 18-10 defeat to the Steelers. A Drake London touchdown with 34 seconds left on the clock handed Raheem Morris’ men a tight 22-21 victory over the Eagles a week later.
But the lack of momentum continued into Week 3 with a defeat to the Chiefs, which was followed by a win last time out against the Saints.
Bucs injuries mount up
Injuries have been steadily mounting up for the Bucs, who have 14 players on the injury list and five of them ruled out for tonight’s game.
All-Pro safety Antoine Winfield Jr. is set to miss his third game of the season after suffering a sprain to his right ankle in the fourth quarter of the Week 1 win over the Commanders. He finished the game with seven tackles, four of them solo. Todd Bowles has not given a timeline as to when Winfield will be back but some reports suggest that the recovery time to be anywhere between two weeks and a month.
On that basis, if Winfield returns to practice next week, he would have just a few days to get back to full fitness for the Week 6 trip to New Orleans. Bowles said the player has “a chance” of making that game.
Winfield’s absence is not Bowles’ only headache. The coach has four other players ruled out for the Falcons game and is without two wide receivers. Trey Palmer (concussion), Luke Goedeke (concussion), Calijah Kancey (calf) and Jalen McMillan (hamstring) are listed a out. SirVocea Dennis, William Gholston and Mike Evans also sat out Monday’s practice.
“We’ll go with what we’ve got, we’ve been going with what we’ve got. We have guys that can step up and they’ll step up again,” the coach told reporters on the eve of the game, adding that he may be forced to elevate players from the practice squad. “We’ve talked about it. We have a few people that we may elevate so it’s a battle of positions right now”.
The Week 5 2024 NFL regular season game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Atlanta Falcons takes place on Thursday 3 October at Mercedes Benz Stadium, Atlanta kicking off at at 8:15 p.m. ET and is available to stream on Amazon TV.