“He’s A Little Sore”
August 13th, 2025
Out.
Bucs coach Todd Bowles today took a page from the NHL. And it has Joe spooked.
Last year Antoine Winfield entered the season as a reigning All-Pro safety. He got hurt late in the season-opening win over Washington. After that, Winfield looked too often like a No-Pro.
In fact, Joe was and is disturbed by how far Winfield fell off the map. Joe still maintains if Winfield was that injured, maybe he shouldn’t have been on the field.
More than a couple of times, Bowles has been adamant that Winfield’s issues last year were specifically his ankle and knee injuries, the latter by friendly fire (Zyon McCollum). With Winfield healthy, Bowles was confident Winfield would return to his previous dominant self.
And now he’s hurt. With an unknown injury.
“He has a lower leg injury,” Bowles said. “He’s a little sore.”
Bowles added nothing else. And Joe might have to guzzle Buffalo Trace to calm down.
If you think NFL coaches and teams are paranoid about injury information — and they very much are paranoid — then the NHL has a certifiable complex. They only refer to injuries as “upper body” or “lower body.” A guy could have a broken ankle or a fractured skull and you’d never know.
So Bowles referring to Winfield’s injury as “lower leg” scares Joe as an ankle is a “lower leg.” We all saw how rotten the Bucs’ pass defense was last year with a hobbled Winfield. The Bucs cannot afford Winfield to have the same issue again.