With no locker room access for reporters and only a handful of players available for video conferences that aren’t conducive to asking probing questions aimed at getting candid responses (especially not off the record responses), the pandemic has helped keep plenty of stories under wraps, for plenty of NFL teams.
After Sunday’s season-ending loss to the Rams, Bucs linebacker Lavonte David hinted at things that perhaps went unnoticed, thanks to the reduced opportunities for reporters to report.
“We had a lot of turmoil going on in our organization,” David said, via Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press.
(Here’s the full quote, from Maaddi: “We had some mishaps here and there, guys bump heads. We had a lot of turmoil going on in our organization. Guys getting injured, guys who were a huge part of our success.”)
It’s unclear what the turmoil was, unless David regards the injuries as “turmoil.” The issues with Antonio Brown were well known. What other turmoil was there?
Most recently, coach Bruce Arians laid hands on safety Andrew Adams. Although we know that the league fined Arians $50,000, there has been nothing said about whether players were fine with it, or whether they had a problem with it.
There could be other things we just don’t know about, given the reduced access to players. Now that the season is over, maybe some of them will have more to say — especially if they end up playing elsewhere in 2022.