On Monday night, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers suffered a brutal loss to the Baltimore Ravens who had them outscored 34-10 by the end of the third quarter. To Tampa’s credit, Baltimore is a phenomenal football team with top tier talent and a future Hall of Famer as their head coach. A loss to them shouldn’t take the spirits out of your team right? Probably not. But what Tampa suffered Monday night felt like much more than an L in the win-loss column.
The team’s top two wide receivers and maybe the best duo in the sport, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin both suffered injuries to the lower extremities against the Ravens. Evans, who had caught the game’s first touchdown pass, suffered a hamstring injury that ruled him out for the remainder of the game. Meaning it was up to his fellow teammate Chris Godwin to carry the load.
Godwin did contribute in picking up the slack making some tough catches throughout the game including a 3rd-and-17 conversion late in the fourth quarter. But it seemed as though after this catch, Godwin was slow to get up. Godwin looked to be in serious pain after he was tackled by linebacker Roquan Smith. Enough pain to the point where he was put in an air cast and carted off of the field. Official diagnosis, a dislocated ankle.
Although we do not yet know the timeline of these injuries, we do know how impactful each player is to this Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense. Mike Evans so far this season has 26 receptions for 335 yards and 6 touchdowns, which is tied for 1st among all receivers. Chris Godwin on the other hand is having a monster season, totaling 50 receptions for 576 yards and 5 touchdowns, which is good for top three in each category. With so much reliance on these two players in the Buccaneers offense, what will they do if significant time is missed? Looking ahead to their next three games they are at home against Atlanta, visiting Kansas City, and another home game against the 9ers. Just a brutal stretch.
With Tampa potentially struggling to win these next string of games, does this allow a team like the Saints to catch up in the South?
We’ll just have to wait and see how things shake out as they are currently battling their own injury concerns. We should know more later in the week on where the arrow is pointing on a lot of key players. If the Saints can get healthy specifically on the offensive side of the ball, they could at the very least keep themselves in games going forward.
