–Bucs linebacker Kendell Beckwith, whose season-long recovery from ankle surgery has left a major void defensively, did not practice on Wednesday – the first day he was eligible to return to the field.
Beckwith, who was placed on the non-football injury list to open the season, said his recovery is going well.
“It’s definitely been a battle,” Beckwith said. “But the battle is almost over.”
Still, there’s no clear timetable for Beckwith, and his uncertain return is a hit for a struggling Bucs defense. Beckwith played an important role as a rookie last season as the team’s starting strong-side linebacker. He logged 73 tackles while filling in elsewhere when starting linebackers Lavonte David and Kwon Alexander missed time with injuries.
He suffered a broken ankle as a passenger in an April car accident. The injury required surgery, and he was unable to participate in training camp or any preseason games.
Since he was placed on the NFI active list to open the season – he didn’t count against the team’s 53-man roster – Beckwith was not eligible to practice until six weeks into the season, and Wednesday marked the first day he could do so.
Once the team clears Beckwith to practice, he would then have 21 days to practice before the team must place him on the active roster. If he’s unable to play when that clock ends, the Bucs would then have to keep him on the non-football injury list for the remainder of the season.
–Head coach Dirk Koetter has no intention of becoming more involved on the defensive side of the ball, and he also has little interest in bringing in an experienced defensive mind from outside the organization as a consultant to help the floundering Tampa Bay defense.
“I’m not a big consultant guy,” Koetter said. “Guys who are in the building, they’ve got skin in the game. Consultants are getting paid. Consultants are like TV announcers, right? They go home at night and they don’t care who wins or loses. … So I just don’t know if there’s big value in that. If you add up the years of experience we have on the defensive guys we still have up there, we’re fine as far as that goes.”
–The Bucs last-gasp attempt to score from the 21-yard line as time expired in Sunday’s 34-29 loss to Atlanta would not have counted even if receiver DeSean Jackson fielded a lateral from Mike Evans and raced to the end zone.
Here’s what happened. With seven seconds remaining, no timeouts and needing a touchdown to win, Jameis Winston ran a quarterback draw play. As he was being tackled, he pitched the football backward. It hit the ground and was bobbled by receiver Adam Humphries before Mike Evans got hold of it and threw the football to Jackson. But the lateral hit the ground and rolled out of bounds at the 8-yard line.
After the game, Evans bemoaned his poor pitch to Jackson. And Jackson wished he had fielded the ball before it went out of bounds.
But would it have counted if Jackson had scored?
“To my knowledge, no,” Koetter said. “The way the play ended up isn’t the way we practiced it, but a lot of plays don’t end up that way. When we checked on it at the start of the year when we started practicing this play, if it’s inside of two minutes or if it’s a fourth-down play it has to be a completed lateral (pass). If it hits the ground, that’s like the old fumble on purpose play.
“That’s the way they explained it to us at the start. It doesn’t really matter at this point. That’s not the way we were trying to do it. Any play where you’ve got one shot from the 20-yard line is extremely low percentage. We had two shots at it with no timeouts, and we weren’t able to get it in the end zone.”
NFL rules say when the game is under the two-minute mark, only the fumbling player can advance a fumble. Some with the Bucs believe the play would not have counted because the play was over the second Winston’s pitch hit the ground.
Pro Football Talk said they contacted the NFL and were told “that Jackson could have picked up the loose ball at the end of the game and scored a touchdown. That’s because the loose ball came on a backward pass, not a fumble.”
BY THE NUMBERS: 1 – Number of interceptions this season for the Bucs.
