While the Tampa Bay Buccaneers enjoyed an impressive 34-20 victory over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, the team now finds itself at the center of an NFL investigation.
According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, the NFL is looking into the Buccaneers’ use of the injury report regarding linebacker Devin White. The 2021 Pro Bowl selection missed Tampa Bay’s Dec. 3 game against the Carolina Panthers and Dec. 10 matchup against the Atlanta Falcons with a foot injury, before returning to practice as a full participant on the Thursday and Friday leading up to Sunday’s game against Green Bay.
White, however, was ultimately inactive against the Packers. Despite his status not being announced until Sunday, the LSU product said that he had informed head coach Todd Bowles on Friday that he wouldn’t be able to play.
“I don’t know, shoot, I guess you could say Friday,” White said, per Stroud. “We had a practice last Friday, and I had a little bit more explosiveness than I did have. But I still felt little bit of discomfort, so I knew I wasn’t all the way there yet. I didn’t want to jeopardize all the work we put in when we sat the previous two weeks trying to get my foot right.”
The Tampa Bay Times had previously reported that White opted not to play after being informed that he wouldn’t be starting against Green Bay and would rotate with K.J. Britt. Speaking to reporters, Bowles insisted that the 2020 second-team All-Pro had been medically cleared to play while defending his team’s injury reporting practices.
“I’m going to say this one time,” Bowles said. “He was medically cleared to play. He then indicated that he didn’t feel right. He informed me that he couldn’t play, he couldn’t go. We had ongoing conversations until Sunday morning. I decided to deactivate him. When he got to the stadium, he found out he was inactive.”
