Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had some pretty awful injury luck, as both their starting wideouts in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin went down against the Baltimore Ravens. But one player they haven't had in a bit has now been confirmed to be out for quite a while.
Bucs linebacker SirVocea Dennis, who shined early this season in a rotational role with K.J. Britt, was placed on Injured Reserve before the Buccaneers played the Atlanta Falcons in Week 5. IR demands at least four weeks out, but head coach Todd Bowles gave media an update on his status on Wednesday — and he'll be out for quite a bit longer, it seems.
Bowles revealed that Dennis has had surgery on his injury shoulder and that he will be out until deep into the playoffs, if not for longer than that. That means that he won't be coming back during the regular season, so unless the Bucs make a trade at some point in the next 13 days.
"It'll probably go deep into the playoffs, if not longer," Bowles said. "He had [his shoulder injury] since college and it was something he was playing with... he kept hurting it every little bit. When it got too bad, he had to get surgery on it."
Tampa Bay has been relying on linebacker K.J. Britt, but results haven't been where they'd want him to be. Per Pro Football Focus, Britt has a 36.2 overall grade, by far the worst of any NFL starter, and seems to have a lot of trouble in coverage so far this year. Dennis was able to alleviate a lot of those problems, but with him gone, Tampa Bay will likely have to do something at inside linebacker — be it trade for one, acquire one in free agency or start someone else on the current roster.
