Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Detroit Lions: Initial injury report

The Buccaneers are getting healthier – but a key player was missing in action

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were able to use their bye week to get healthy after numerous key players dealt with injuries over the first four weeks. Rookie Calijah Kancey and SirVocea Dennis missed extended time, starting corners Carlton Davis and Jamel Dean missed time, Devin White and Vita Vea played through injury, and Mike Evans left the week four game against the Saints in the second quarter with a hamstring injury.

Good news for the Bucs is most of these players returned to practice on Wednesday. The bad news is Mike Evans didn’t.

While this may have just been an additional day of rest as he recovers from the injury, this is definitely something to keep an eye on throughout the week. Evans is the kind of player that could miss practice all week and still find his way onto the field Sunday, but if the Bucs don’t have him it will be difficult to keep pace with an offense like the Detroit Lions have.

Speaking of the Lions, they were certainly missing some key players on Wednesday including rookie sensation Brian Branch, who missed last week’s game against the Carolina Panthers. While they did see star receiver Amon Ra St. Brown return in a limited capacity, it seems the Lions have been bit pretty hard by the injury bug as of late.

In addition to Branch, the Lions were without running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and Zonovan Knight, guard Jonah Jackson, and tight end James Mitchell.

As far as the injured Bucs that returned to practice this week, they had full participation from Calijah Kancey, SirVocea Dennis, Jamel Dean, Anthony Nelson, Logan Ryan, Derrek Pitts, and Devin White.

One other player to monitor is right tackle Luke Goedeke. He was limited with a calf injury – which Bucs fans know all too well can linger and cause players to miss a lot of time due to the nature of those soft tissue injuries. Goedeke will be the main player in charge of trying to contain Lions pass rush specialist and game wrecker Aiden Hutchinson. While he was going to have his hands full even if he was 100%, being anything less will make Goedeke’s day that much more difficult.

You can view the entire injury report below;

The Buccaneers and Lions face off inside Raymond James Stadium – or, as it’ll be this week, The Big Sombrero – at 4:25 p.m. ET on FOX. Adam Amin and Daryl Johnston will be on the call.

For more on this and all things Tampa Bay Buccaneers check out James Yarcho and David Harrison on the Locked On Bucs Podcast!