Buccaneers HC Bowles Gives Injury Update After Win over Carolina

Something that makes the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 43-13 win over the Carolina Panthers on the road Sunday even more impressive is that the Bucs were missing three of their important players.

The Bucs did get their most important player back in quarterback Baker Mayfield.

But the Bucs didn't have their best defensive player, Antoine Winfield Jr. (rib fracture), their best receiver, Emeka Egbuka (concussion/foot) or a key offensive lineman in Luke Goedeke (calf).

Coach Todd Bowles was asked during his weekly press conference about the status of all three. He said all three are questionable for Sunday's game against the Atlanta Falcons, which is to be expected since it's only Monday.

Winfield got hurt against the Green Bay Packers Oct. 4 and was expected to be out 2-4 weeks. Egbuka got hurt against the Pittsburgh Steelers Oct. 18 and was ruled out for the Carolina contest. Goedke got hurt ahead of the Carolina game after playing a season-high 74 snaps (per Pro Football Focus) against the Steelers.

The Bucs (2-5) will need all three going forward if they are to rally and make the playoffs, but they didn't need any of them against Carolina.

Tampa only had to throw the ball 11 times, making it easy to forget that Egbuka wasn't on the field.

Tampa was strong defensively, limiting QB Bryce Young to 14-of-27 passing for 163 yards, a touchdown and two interceptions, taking away the sting of Winfield being out.

The offensive line accounted for Goedke's absence big time. Tampa had one of its best days running the ball in franchise history, exploding for 258 yards, the fourth most in the history of the team. In place of Goedke, the Bucs started Ben Chukwuma at right tackle, who played 63 snaps.

Granted, a tackle's main job is to protect the quarterback, and considering Mayfield only threw 11 passes, it's fair to say that Chukwuma wasn't tested as much as he will be in future games.

But Bowles was impressed enough with him to say he feels Chukwuma has a big future as a starter in the NFL.

Right now, the Bucs' future is the Falcons. That's the next opponent, and even though there's more football ahead of Tampa (10 games) than there is behind, the Bucs at 2-5 have to treat every game as if it's a playoff game.

Getting these three back is going to help, whether it's this week or further down the road.