Buccaneers place promising young wide receiver on IR to begin the season

On Monday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finalized their 53-man roster, making several cuts to get to the mandatory limit. Overall, there weren't many surprising decisions made with the toughest cuts coming at positions like wide receiver and safety.

Not long after finalizing the roster, though, Tampa Bay announced that second-year UDFA wide receiver Rakim Jarrett will miss the beginning portion of the season due to an undisclosed injury.

It's not all bad news. While the Bucs have already placed a few players on season-ending IR, including running back Chase Edmonds, the same won't be the case for Jarrett. Instead, he will begin the 2024 season on the injured reserve designated for return list, missing just the first four games.

There's a chance that he misses more time, but the Bucs apparently feel confident enough in his ability to come back after the first quarter of the season and make an impact. What the roster looks like at that point is up in the air, but it wouldn't be shocking to see him added to the practice squad once he returns.

Buccaneers are keeping a promising young WR thanks to new NFL injury rules

Under current NFL rules, teams can put two players on injured reserve on the day of the final roster cuts and then bring them back during the regular season. Previously, any player put on injured reserve up to the day of final roster cuts was out for the season.

With that, Jarrett and Edmonds will both go on injured reserve Tuesday during final roster cuts, and will later be activated at some point during the season. Jarrett will cap off the Bucs' wide receiver core of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Jalen McMillan, Trey Palmer and Kam Johnson heading into 2024.

Jarrett, who went undrafted in the 2023 NFL draft, caught just four passes for 60 yards in 115 total snaps across ten games last season. In the Buccaneers' week three preseason game against the Dolphins, Jarrett caught both of his targets for 35 receiving yards before exiting the game with an injury.

Before signing with Tampa Bay last offseason, Jarrett played three seasons at Maryland, and compiled 119 catches for 1,552 receiving yards and ten touchdowns in 28 games. In 2021, Jarrett caught 62 passes for a team-high 829 receiving yards and five touchdowns in 13 games, all career-highs.

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