{"id":546423,"date":"2026-03-26T12:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546423\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T12:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T12:55:13","slug":"chatter-emerges-of-a-lavonte-david-return-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546423\/","title":{"rendered":"Chatter Emerges Of A Lavonte David Return – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Joe is only sharing this because it comes from a credible source and the Bucs have a distinct pattern of engaging in this kind of activity.<\/p>\n

So Lavonte David retired yesterday. His legendary 14-year career ended with an emotional news conference and many of his friends and family alongside him at One Buc Palace.<\/p>\n

Hours later, a friend of Todd Bowles and a student of the NFL, ex-Bucs scout and former Jets linebackers coach and personnel chief Pat Kirwan, said on his SiriusXM NFL Radio show that he wouldn\u2019t be surprised if David returns to play next season because he\u2019s been so productive for so long, including last year.<\/p>\n

No, Kirwan wasn\u2019t high or unaware David retired.<\/p>\n

In fact, Kirwan\u2019s comments came after him lauding David\u2019s underappreciated career and stats.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course he could still play,\u201d Kirwan said. \u201cThere are going to be things that are going to get tougher to do, like getting out on the slot. Now, if you\u2019re always going to check zone, [David] could probably still do it. But if you ever wanted him to play man,\u00a0that\u2019s where things get a little rough in Year 15 of your football career. \u2026 Something tells me, Nov. 1st and the [Bucs] are out of linebackers, they call the old man, he shows up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep in mind Bowles is a regular in-season guest on Kirwan\u2019s show.<\/p>\n

Six weeks ago, David said, \u201cI got a lot of football left in me,<\/a>\u201d and yesterday David did not say his body was done, only that he no longer had motivation to play<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What if that changes?<\/p>\n

Joe considers David retired, but David is still human and in love with the game of football. In desperation moves in each of the past two seasons, the Bucs signed Shaq Barrett (2024) and Jason Pierre-Paul (2025). So please don\u2019t tell Joe that David finding his way back onto the 2026 roster is ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Heck, the Bucs brought back Tom Brady after he retired and did his best to break his Bucs contract so he could play for the Dolphins<\/a>.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n

Logan Hall Speaks Out<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joe is only sharing this because it comes from a credible source and the Bucs have a distinct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[5961,5960,349,99,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-546423","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-bucs-message-boards","9":"tag-bucs-news","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}