Antoine Winfield Jr. leaves Week 14 after suffering knee injury: Latest updates

It's been a nightmare season for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the injury front, as almost every key player on the team has missed some time after getting banged up. Even Baker Mayfield needed to miss a few plays last week against the Panthers after getting his ankle stepped on, and the bad luck continued on Sunday.

Coming into the game the Bucs were missing two inside linebackers with both K.J. Britt and J.J. Russell having been ruled out, with Mike Edwards and Josh Hayes also down. That comes on the heels of Jordan Whitehead being placed on IR and the team missing linebacker SirVocea Dennis who is on injured reserve as well.

Simply put, it's been like a MASH unit for the Bucs' defense this year and another tough injury hit them in Week 14.

Buccaneers lose Antoine Winfield Jr. to a knee injury in Week 14

All-Pro safety Antoine Winfield Jr. quietly left the game in the first half with what was deemed a knee injury and was quickly ruled out not long after that. It's another massive blow to a Buccaneers defense that can't afford to get any thinner than it already is.

Winfield was already hobbled by a foot injury he suffered in Week 1's win over the Commanders. That injury cost him the next four games, and he didn't return until the Bucs' game against Baltimore in October.

He hasn't looked 100 percent since his return but he's done all he can to try and help keep a defense held together by duct tape and bubblegum from falling apart. It's unclear just how serious the knee injury is, but it's a potentially fatal blow to a defense that has already lost so much this year.

Those injuries have piled up in a big way to hold Todd Bowles' defense back from playing on the level it's usually capable of. Bowles continues to run the same aggressive style he always does but he's missing key pieces that have made created gaps that opponents have taken advantage of.

Losing Winfield for an extended period of time would be brutal. He's the anchor of the Bucs' defense but not having one of the team's best players on the field for the playoffs would put Tampa Bay in a tough spot.

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