Even after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers went into Green Bay and officially flipped their season back around, Devin White has dominated the conversation.
All of the drama stems from Whote being ruled inactive ahead of last Sunday's win over the Pakcers and the Bucs handling of it. Essentially, the Bucs talked themselves into a bit of a pretzel with consistently confusing explinations forwhat happened.
Before the game, NFL Network reported that White was being ruled inactive for non-injury reasons, but Todd Bowles contradicted that after the game. There was nothing inherently wrong with that -- had the story stopped there.
Rather than simply say White wasn't healthy enough to play and was therefore made inactive, Bowles added some extra context that now has the team in hot water.
"Devin told me Friday he couldn't play, or Saturday or Friday he couldn't play," he told reporters. "So K.J. started."
There would have been nothing wrong with the Bucs ruling White inactive on Sunday if he wasn't ready to go, but saying that the team knew on Friday is where things get sticky. Teams are supposed to report players who are out as soon as they know that information, which is why Carlton Davis was ruled out before the weekend.
If the Bucs knew White was out but failed to report that, it's not a good thing. The team has continued to be super unclear about the timeline but has tried to clean things up in a way that feels like they know they stepped in it.
"I'm gonna say this one time," he told reporters Wednesday. "He was medically cleared to play. Then he indicated that he didn't feel right, and informed me that he couldn't play. He couldn't go. We had ongoing conversations until Sunday morning. I decided to deactivate him. When he got to the stadium he found out he was inactive."
Skeptics aren't buying it, and neither is the league.
NFL investigated Buccaneers over handling of Devin White injury
On Wednesday the NFL revealed that it was investigating the Bucs over whether they violated any league rules in their handling of White's injury designation.
The Bucs injury-reporting case involving linebacker Devin White is under review by the NFL, according to a league official. "We will review the matter with the club,'' NFL VP of Communications Brian McCarthy told the Tampa Bay Times in a text message.
— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) December 20, 2023