The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still playing a waiting game with Desmond Watson.
The undrafted rookie defensive tackle out of Florida, who entered the league weighing 464 pounds, is still on the non-football illness list as the Bucs take part in the final week of the preseason.
Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles was asked Tuesday about Watson, and he provided this update to reporters:
“That’s something we’re going to meet about in the next two days. I’d like to have some long-term plans for him going forward because he’s making some progress and I feel like down the line he can help us, but we’ll have those conversations toward the end of the week.”
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SI’s River Wells broke down how the Buccaneers can keep Watson into the regular season despite him not playing.
“Watson could go to the reserve-NFI list to start the year, and that would allow him to continue his goal of losing weight,” Wells wrote. “He would not count toward the active roster on this list, but the team also doesn’t have to pay him any money, either, so it’s likely they’d come to some sort of agreement on that end. Once the team wants Watson to make an attempt to play, he would have 21 days to come off of the NFI list. After that period of practice, the Buccaneers can either cut him or activate him to the active roster, so it would leave them with some options.”
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The NFL’s cutdown day to the 53-man roster is Tuesday, August 26. At this point, there’s basically no chance Watson is on this list.
The reserve-NFI list is Tampa Bay’s chance to keep him around and work on the plan that Bowles wants to make for him.
At 6-foot-6 and with athletic ability at his Pro Day that is astounding given his size, the Bucs won’t want to get rid of Watson yet.
It’s still a process to get to where they want to go, though.
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