Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians ruled out tight end O.J. Howard for Sunday's showdown against the Tennessee Titans because of a hamstring injury.
Bucs’ HC Bruce Arians ruled out TE OJ Howard for Sunday’s game against the Titans due to a hamstring injury.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 25, 2019
Howard first appeared on the injury report on Wednesday with the hamstring injury. On Thursday, he was a non-participant so it's not a surprise that he isn't able to go.
Losing a starting tight end is a big loss, but he hasn't had a big impact on the team this year. On the season Howard only has 13 catches for 176 yards, and he is still looking for his first touchdown.
Howard's inability to have a big role has been puzzling, and Arians put a lot of it on opportunities, but also put some of the blame on the tight end.
“Part of it’s game planning, part of it’s opportunities in the game,” Bucs coach Bruce Arians said via tampabay.com. “He’s got to catch it — he dropped two balls last week.
“But (the) other (part) is opportunity. A lot of stuff that we’ve had for him in the red zone just hasn’t happened. We go into a game with 100-and-some plays and the game dictates sometimes what happens, but part of the time when we have game planned for him, they take it out of the way.”
The other tight ends on the Buccaneers' roster are Cameron Brate and Tanner Hudson. Hudson should make his NFL debut after being a healthy scratch the first six games. Hudson was a standout during the preseason and should get a couple of targets on Sunday.
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