Chiefs at Buccaneers Inactives: Who's In, Who's Out?
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As the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers square off on Sunday Night Football in Week 4, both clubs will be looking to get back on track following disappointing losses.
For Kansas City, Andy Reid's bunch is coming off a game that featured struggles on offense and countless mistakes on special teams. On top of that, a late unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Chris Jones led to the Colts being able to score the eventual game-winning touchdown. For Tampa Bay, Tom Brady and company scored just 12 points against the Green Bay Packers last week and are striving to bounce back offensively. From that perspective, neither team figures to give anything but its absolute best on Sunday.
From a health perspective, however, both teams are dealing with a laundry list of injuries. The Chiefs head into this game somewhat healthy and will have many injured players active, but pain tolerance will be something to watch. For example, last week, Mecole Hardman appeared to re-aggravate his heel injury and was rendered largely ineffective in Indianapolis. The Buccaneers are also benefitting from primarily good news and the return of multiple big-time players, but 100% health at this point in the season — even considering that — isn't exactly attainable.
With that in mind, ahead of their Week 4 game on the road, the Chiefs' list of inactive players has been released:
As previously announced in advance of the game, both defensive lineman Mike Danna and kicker Harrison Butker are out for Kansas City. Danna practiced twice during the week but wasn't able to get going in time to play through his calf injury, and Butker's ankle sprain still isn't in a good enough place for him to be active. The other notable injury-related decision pertained to wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, whom Jeremy Fowler of ESPN announced had planned to play as of Saturday afternoon. As expected, he's active for Week 4.
Defensive end Joshua Kaindoh, who was listed as a non-participant on Friday with an illness, carried a questionable designation into Sunday's game. He's inactive on game day, which could be either a reflection of his health, the Chiefs' preference for Malik Hering, or both. Elsewhere for Kansas City, some usual suspects (running back Ronald Jones and quarterback Shane Buechele, namely) are listed as inactive.
The Buccaneers' inactives have also been released:
Throughout the week, the majority of the conversation surrounding Tampa Bay's injured players was in regards to wide receivers Chris Godwin and Julio Jones. As the anticipation built for news on their likelihood for Sunday's game, it became more and more apparent that both of Tom Brady's dangerous weapons (in addition to wideout Russell Gage and offensive tackle Donovan Smith) would be good to go. Elsewhere for the Buccaneers, defensive lineman Akiem Hicks was ruled out in advance of the contest and wideout Breshad Perriman was expected to likely miss the game. Perriman is now officially inactive.
