Bucs reflect on injury-riddled season
TAMPA, Fla. - Injuries are something no football player or coach, for that matter, would ever use as an excuse.
Yet, you cannot talk about the Bucs' 2024 season without talking about the injuries suffered along the way.

Vita Vea tightened a brace on his leg as he battled injuries throughout the season.
"We got banged up pretty early," said head coach Todd Bowles. "We made some routine plays look hard. I didn't like that, and it will probably eat at me the whole offseason."
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Whether it was Sua Opeta, SirVocea Dennis, Antoine Winfield Jr., Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Luke Goedeke, Cade Otton, Jamel Dean Christian Izien, the list of injured players grew by the day at times.
"You try to prepare for it. Me and Jason (Licht) will sit down and talk about how we want to approach the offseason," Bowles said.
Try as they might, injuries pop up in the NFL all the same.
And pop up, they did this season for the Buccaneers.
Especially on defense, where Bowles attempted to construct his defense with an ever-rotating cast of characters at times.
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"I feel like we would've been way more scary," said outside linebacker Yaya Diaby. "Missing guys like Sirvocea Dennis, that really hurt us."
While it might be nearly impossible not to think about what this team could've done with a fully healthy season in the NFL, that just isn't realistic.
However, the silver lining to all the injuries is that it allowed new and younger talent to shine through.
And shine through it did.
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"Obviously, that's huge," said running back Rachaad White. "They got a lot of playing time, got a lot of experience and that's what comes with it. I think they stepped up and did a great job, to be honest with you."
Regardless of how much a factor injuries were this season, it's impossible not to go into the offseason thinking about how they can be prevented next year.
"In the offseason, you reevaluated everything," said Bowles. "There's nothing that goes unturned in the offseason. It's too early to say everything that we're going to evaluate, but we're going to evaluate everything."
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