Tight end Ko Kieft's fourth campaign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers has come to a premature end after he suffered a season-ending leg injury on Sunday in the team's win over the New York Jets. The Buccaneers placed Kieft on injured reserve on Tuesday amid a series of roster moves.
Tampa Bay filled the resulting vacancy on their 53-man roster by promoting defensive lineman C.J. Brewer from the practice squad. The Buccaneers also signed defensive lineman Desmond Watson and tight end Caden Prieskorn, both rookies, to the practice squad and released rookie safety Jack Henderson from that same unit.
Kieft is the fourth Buccaneer to land on injured reserve in the last seven days, following last week's losses of tackle Luke Goedeke, guard Cody Mauch and defensive lineman Calijah Kancey. Goedeke is the only one of the four expected to return to action this season. The Bucs had also previously placed wide receiver Jalen McMillan, safety J.J. Roberts and outside linebacker David Walker on injured reserve; McMillan could return at some point in the second half of the season.
Kieft was a sixth-round pick (number 218 overall) in the 2022 draft out of Minnesota. He played in 53 of a possible 54 games before his injury on Sunday, logging 19 starts. While he was rarely targeted in the passing game (eight career receptions on 15 targets), he is a rugged blocker who the Buccaneers have used in that capacity at multiple spots in their offensive formation. In Sunday's game against the Jets, Kieft played 16 offensive snaps, his highest total in a game since Week 16 of last season.
Kieft also emerged as a core special teams player over his first four seasons, playing at least 60% of the Buccaneers special teams snaps in each of his first three years in Tampa. He had logged a career-high 77% of the kick-and-coverage snaps through the first three weeks of the 2025 season.
Brewer returns to the Bucs' active roster, where he spent all but the first two weeks of last season, appearing in 12 games and recording 2.0 sacks. He also produced 12 tackles, three quarterback hits and two passes defensed in 2024 and had two tackles in two games as a rookie for the Buffalo Bills in 2022. Brewer originally entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Bills out of Coastal Carolina, and first joined the Buccaneers as a May signing in 2023. He spent most of the 2023 season on Tampa Bay's practice squad.
Watson signed with the Buccaneers as an undrafted free agent out of Florida in May. He spent training camp on the reserve/non-football illness list and was waived on August 26. Prieskorn, who played his college ball at Mississippi, started out with the Detroit Lions this spring as an undrafted free agent and later spent time in training camp with the Denver Broncos. Henderson, a University of Minnesota product like Kieft, signed with the Carolina Panthers as a rookie free agent in May, then was waived on August 25 and signed to the Buccaneers' practice squad three days later.
