The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Cincinnati Bengals named their game-day inactives on Sunday at 11:30 p.m. ET, 90 minutes before kickoff of their Week Eight game at Paul Brown Stadium. NFL teams are required to reduce their active rosters to 46 players for each regular-season game.
The Buccaneers had already ruled out starting defensive linemen Vinny Curry and Gerald McCoy on Friday. At the same time, Head Coach Dirk Koetter declared that running back Peyton Barber and defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, both of whom missed practice time during the week, were "good to go." Aside from the inactives, this is the first game in 2018 in which the defense will play without starting middle linebacker Kwon Alexander, who suffered a torn ACL last Sunday. Adarius Taylor is expected to start in his place.
The Bengals have a number of relevant injuries and on Friday had already ruled out six players, which makes up most of this week's inactive list. Those six include running back Gionavi Bernard, starting linebacker Nick Vigil and cornerback Darqueze Dennard. When healthy, Bernard is part of a productive backfield duo with Joe Mixon; Vigil is the Bengals' leading tackler; Dennard is listed as a starter on Cincinnati's depth chart at nickel back.
BUCCANEERS INACTIVES
· G Alex Cappa
· DE Vinny Curry
· QB Ryan Griffin
· DE Demone Harris
· OL Michael Liedtke
· DT Gerald McCoy
· RB Shaun Wilson
Curry and McCoy are out due to injury.
BENGALS INACTIVES
· RB Giovani Bernard
· LB Vontaze Burfict
· CB Darqueze Dennard
· TE Tyler Kroft
· C Billy Price
· WR John Ross
· LB Nick Vigil
All seven are out due to injury.
