Bucs' latest rash of injuries aren't doing them any favors as they try and put the 53-man roster together for the 2025 season

Good luck trying to predict what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' initial 53-man roster is going to look like in less than a week.

Every single NFL team deals with injuries, but the Bucs have been dealt a bad hand going back to the start of last year, when the team lost star safety Antoine Winfield Jr. in the season-opening win over the Washington Commanders for an extended period of time. Now, in 2025, they're dealing with another rash of key injuries heading into the preseason finale against the Buffalo Bills.

This is a unique flavor of frustrating, however, due to the fact that guys like Chris Godwin and Tristan Wirfs will start the season on the Buccaneers' 53-man roster but won't be ready to play until a few weeks into the regular season. While that's good news in the big picture, the fact they take up a roster spot, yet won't play, migh t leave a guy like WR Ryan Miller or OT Ben Chukwuma out in the cold. Sure, with all due respect, those guys aren't going to move the needle too much, but having two guys who can actually play if another injury occurs is obviously better than having two guys who can't.

Then there are guys like defensive back Christian Izien, cornerback Benjamin Morrison, and safety Tykee Smith. Izien's injury could trickle into the regular season, but it isn't severe enough to warrant an IR stint - so there's another roster spot gone that features a guy who probably won't play Week 1. We don't know what the status of Morrison or Smith is, but the latter hasn't practiced in weeks and there haven't been any updates signaling the situation will change anytime soon.

That's potentially five roster spots taken up by players who can't play and it's unclear if they'll be ready by Week 1. It's a tough spot to be in and it stretches the Bucs' depth in a way that can snowball if more misfortune were to occur.

"Obviously there's a lot of injury situations going on right now, so that's kind of played into some of those guys that unfortunately we may have to ke ep at different positions where we think we may have depth and it's kind of been eroded a little bit," Buccaneers assistant general manager Rob McCartney told reporters Thursday. "(It's a) big game for these guys on Saturday – the inside linebackers, safeties, offensive line. Those will be positions we'll be watching closely on Saturday."

I certainly don't envy the Bucs' decision makers, from the coaching staff to the front office. Roster cuts are always tough, but the variety and severity of the preseason injuries are going to make them even tougher and the worst part for Tampa Bay is it'll likely have spots taken up by guys who can't go Week 1.

"They’re all difficult," Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles said when asked which cuts would be the hardest make in 2025. "The hardest thing for a coach is to tell someone they can’t play in the NFL. But position-wise, this has probably been a hard camp and there’s some position battles going on everywhere. Injuries play a part in those things as well. So every position right now almost is going to come down to injured and playing on Saturday. That’s going to be a big key."