Lavonte David taking it ‘day by day’

If the Super Bowl happened this past Sunday, there’s a strong chance Buccaneers linebacker Lavonte David would have missed it. The veteran, a second round pick in 2012, suffered a hamstring injury against the Packers in the third quarter of the NFC Championship and was held out of practice all last week.

Bruce Arians, when speaking to the media on Monday, said that in order to keep David off the field Sunday, you’d “have to shoot him,” but hamstrings are a tricky injury that the Bucs have had to deal with from a lot of their players all year long. Whether it was Mike Evans or Chris Godwin, there have been some key players that had to miss time or battle through hamstring injuries throughout the 2020 season.

David, however, seems optimistic. He spoke with the media on Tuesday and updated his situation, saying that he’s just taking it day to day and that he trusts the training staff. Come Sunday, “We’ll see how everything goes.”

The Bucs did a glorified walkthrough for practice on Tuesday and head coach Bruce Arians said all the injured players did participate. And although he isn’t concerned about David’s potential status, the other injured players - Antonio Brown, Antoine Winfield Jr., and Jordan Whitehead - all participated but “aren’t ready yet.”

The first official injury report of the week will come out on Wednesday and things look promising for David to play in Super Bowl LV, but there’s no guarantee. As David said, just take it day by day and come Sunday we’ll see how everything goes.