On a recent appearance on the Caps Off podcast<\/a>, David was candid about his state of mind.<\/p>\nAt age 36, he said he still feels physically strong and mentally invested in football, but the decision isn\u2019t an easy one. \u201cI feel good,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, I\u2019m healthy. I\u2019m happy. I\u2019m undecided [on retiring] \u2026 I still got a lot of football left in me. I know that for sure. I still love the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay has maintained open communication with its franchise pillar, and there\u2019s every indication the team will welcome him back if he decides he wants to keep playing in 2026. David made it clear that, once again, it is Buccaneers or nothing; he wouldn’t feel right in another team’s uniform.<\/p>\n
The team welcoming him back means they, too, believe that a now healthy David, who was dealing with a knee injury the entirety of the 2025 season, still has plenty left in the tank. While some fans may believe otherwise, David did beat Jayden Daniels to the sideline in their 2024 playoff matchup and still made more plays than any other linebacker on the Bucs roster last season.<\/p>\n
A proper Lavonte David retirement tour where he competes for one last title run while molding his heir apparent could very much be on the table.<\/p>\n
Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 17, 2026, 11:50 p.m. ET As the 2026 NFL offseason unfolds, Lavonte David, the longtime linebacker and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[95878,211,7,6,96509,96860,95882,102069,95896,95888,95895,95906,95883,96239,704,250,2597,2596,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-759703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-buccaneers","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sstssportsnflbuccaneers","13":"tag-sstsnbuccaneers","14":"tag-tagamerican-football","15":"tag-taglavonte-david","16":"tag-tagnational-sports","17":"tag-tagnfl","18":"tag-tagnfl-hub","19":"tag-tagoverall-positive","20":"tag-tagsports-news","21":"tag-tagtampa-bay-buccaneers","22":"tag-tampa-bay","23":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","24":"tag-tampabay","25":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116090084151104968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}