TAMPA — The NFL stripped the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of one of their 10 allotted organized team activity practices this week after league officials determined players were taken to the ground during non-contact sessions, Head Coach Todd Bowles confirmed.
The penalty cost the Bucs their Wednesday practice during the final stretch of OTAs, which were scheduled to wrap up with four sessions this week, Monday through Thursday. Bowles said the team had already planned to give players Tuesday off for meetings and workouts, meaning the club lost two of four scheduled on-field days.
“Wednesday was by the league, because at the first practice we had too many guys on the ground, so they took a practice from us,” Bowles said. “We aren’t trying to get anybody hurt. That was the basis of it.”
OTA practices are voluntary under NFL rules and cannot include pads or intentional contact. Bowles said the violations were not deliberate and involved a small number of plays. “It was about three or four plays that reported us,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of new guys trying to learn how to practice, but we cleaned that up and kind of took care of it.”
The Bucs have had near-perfect attendance at OTAs despite their voluntary status, with the coaching staff installing new Offensive Coordinator Zac Robinson’s system. Robinson has said he wants second-year receiver Emeka Egbuka, the team’s leading receiver last season, to settle into the “Z” receiver role after playing multiple positions as a rookie. The team also used a third-round pick on Georgia State wide receiver Ted Hurst in April to replace Mike Evans, who departed for San Francisco in free agency after 12 seasons.
“The way our receivers went down last year, you need a ton of them,” Bowles said of a position group that includes Chris Godwin, Egbuka, Jalen McMillan, Tez Johnson and Hurst. “To draft a guy like Hurst to go with the other athletes we have in there, that just enhances everybody else’s competition.”
On defense, second-year cornerback Benjamin Morrison flashed during a recent OTA session, intercepting a pass intended for Godwin. Morrison, a 2025 second-round pick out of Notre Dame, missed seven games as a rookie while recovering from hip surgery and other soft-tissue injuries, and did not make his first start until Week 16. With Jamel Dean having departed in free agency, Morrison is competing for the outside corner spot opposite Zyon McCollum, alongside fellow 2025 draftee Jacob Parrish and rookie fourth-rounder Keionte Scott, who participated in his first practice this week after recovering from wrist surgery.
“I told him after the fact, like, ‘That was a phenomenal play. You broke with confidence and caught the ball in stride. That’s a pick-six because of the play that you made,’” Godwin said of Morrison’s interception.
The Buccaneers are also adjusting to a new roster-cutdown timeline for 2026. The NFL moved the deadline for all cuts to the 53-man limit to 6:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, Aug. 30 — the final preseason weekend — rather than the Tuesday after the last preseason game, as had been the case each of the past four seasons. Tampa Bay closes its preseason schedule in Jacksonville that Friday.