Buccaneers

Bucs RB Bucky Irving said it was emotionally hard for him to deal with a major injury that has costed him half his season.

“It’s tough, man, your first time being hurt,” Irving said, via the Tampa Bay Times. “I mean, when I step on that field, like I always say, I don’t take this game for granted. I love what I do every day, I love my teammates, and when I go out there I play and I show them each and every time that I get the ball I’m trying to make plays and make things happen for this organization and this team, help them any type of fashion to help them win football games. When God takes something away from you and he’s telling you to get more closer to him and just lean on him, because it’s being able to be down and have something taken away from you, everything was all right because I had the right people around me.”

Irving added that he’s felt support from the entire organization while he was rehabbing.

“I can’t name everybody, from this person to this person. But the people who were with me every step of the way know who they are, and I want to give them big praise and a shoutout to them for helping me throughout this process, because they’ve been around and they’ve seen it before,” he said. “So, just being able to trust them, to trust their plan to help me get back and to be around my teammates, because I love my teammates.”

Panthers

Following their loss to the 49ers in Week 12, Panthers RB Rico Dowdle posted an emoji with squiggly eyes implying some frustration with how things went. Dowdle clarified the post and said HC Dave Canales addressed the team to tell them he should have called more run plays to take advantage of the lighter boxes.

“Just frustrated with the outcome of the game,” Dowdle said, via ESPN’s David Newton. “I thought we had an opportunity to run the ball more. Coach addressed it with the team. … He talked to me this morning about it.”

“We’ve got to run the ball for us to have our best chance and things like that.”

“We had an opportunity to run it on them. They didn’t give us heavy boxes. So I thought we could have run it on them… He just took full ownership of it. He definitely knows we need to run the ball to make that game closer. He said that in front of the whole team.”

Saints

Veteran WR Brandin Cooks offered high praise for the Saints organization after they worked with him to help him find a better situation to finish out the season.

“I would say I’ve got a ton of respect for the Saints organization helping me through this process and granting me this. There’s not one bad thing I have to say about them. I’ve got a lot of love for those guys over there. I believe in Kellan. I believe in Mickey. And I think they’ll get that right,” Cooks said, per Lance Lysowski.

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