Buccaneers Linebacker Will Miss Rest of 2024 Regular Season

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be without a budding young star for the rest of the year.

Nov 19, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker SirVocea Dennis (8) before the game against the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images / Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had some pretty awful injury luck, as both their starting wideouts in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin went down against the Baltimore Ravens. But one player they haven't had in a bit has now been confirmed to be out for quite a while.

Bucs linebacker SirVocea Dennis, who shined early this season in a rotational role with K.J. Britt, was placed on Injured Reserve before the Buccaneers played the Atlanta Falcons in Week 5. IR demands at least four weeks out, but head coach Todd Bowles gave media an update on his status on Wednesday — and he'll be out for quite a bit longer, it seems.

Bowles revealed that Dennis has had surgery on his injury shoulder and that he will be out until deep into the playoffs, if not for longer than that. That means that he won't be coming back during the regular season, so unless the Bucs make a trade at some point in the next 13 days.

Todd Bowles says that SirVocea Dennis had surgery and isn’t coming back any time soon — says that he’ll back for a “deep playoff run, if not later.” pic.twitter.com/1Sr8pl3Y8z

— River Wells (@riverhwells) October 23, 2024

READ MORE: Will the Bucs Make a Move for WR Cooper Kupp?

"It'll probably go deep into the playoffs, if not longer," Bowles said. "He had [his shoulder injury] since college and it was something he was playing with... he kept hurting it every little bit. When it got too bad, he had to get surgery on it."

Tampa Bay has been relying on linebacker K.J. Britt, but results haven't been where they'd want him to be. Per Pro Football Focus, Britt has a 36.2 overall grade, by far the worst of any NFL starter, and seems to have a lot of trouble in coverage so far this year. Dennis was able to alleviate a lot of those problems, but with him gone, Tampa Bay will likely have to do something at inside linebacker — be it trade for one, acquire one in free agency or start someone else on the current roster.

In his four games with the Bucs, Dennis netted 22 total tackles, a sack and a stuff behind the line.

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