A No-Worries Injury To Tristan Wirfs
July 12th, 2025
Joe hears fans of various kinds acting like the sky is falling because All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs had knee surgery and might miss a game or two or four to start the season.
Some of these folks are even shaving a game or two off their Bucs’ season-win-total predictions. Relax, people! Joe’s not freaking out.
First, Wirfs missing time has come to be expected. Second, Joe has no reason to believe veteran backup Charlie Heck is a stiff the likes of Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. The Bucs have two months to coach up Heck and acclimate him to a great unit — after he attended the Bucs’ spring program and worked with the first team while Wirfs sat out.
Anyone remember journeyman Josh Wells starting four games at tackle (left and right) during the 2021 season, when the Bucs’ offense was legendary?
It happens. Backups play. There’s no rule that says they have to suck.
Speaking on SiriusXM NFL Radio this week, Christian Fauria, the 13-year tight end who was one of Tom Brady’s targets for years, talked about the Wirfs injury and sort of scoffed at its signficance to the Bucs.
The real issue, Fauria explained, is when multiple injuries occur on an offensive line. He made the point that a strong offense can handle one starting O-lineman going down but it’s rare for a team to keep rolling with two or three guys down. He also noted the Bucs have plenty of time to practice and plan for Wirfs’ absence, and that Heck is “more than capable” of a decent showing.
Again, Joe is not concerned. But if Cody Mauch’s back stiffens up in training camp and Graham Barton is all of a sudden on the Week 1 injury report with a hamstring tweak, well, yeah, then you might find Joe pacing the aisles of Whole Foods looking for herbal healings.
July 12th, 2025 at 5:42 pm
What blows is clearly the knee has been an issue. To play the wait and see this late into the off-season is ridiculous. So this procedure takes 12 weeks to recover from? Just really piss poor managing and planning. To write him off for 25% of the season is just a bad decision
July 12th, 2025 at 5:47 pm
Agreed cardiac
July 12th, 2025 at 5:52 pm
Carberry and Picucci are by all accounts great O-line coaches and like Joe say’s they have plenty of time to coach guys up…. Heck has been taking 1st team snaps in underwear football. He’ll have a full training camp, preseason games etc to get ready. Grizz will have plenty of time to evaluate and plan.
Haven’t been very upset about it to be honest.
July 12th, 2025 at 5:56 pm
Oh bullcrap. They did what they thought was best. And it was reinjured… but congratulations on having an opinion that gives you an excuse to blame someone. Beeyaaatches gonna beeyaaatch.
July 12th, 2025 at 6:03 pm
They’ll probably keep him active in hopes that he can be ready by game 3 only to sit him till game 5.
July 12th, 2025 at 6:06 pm
It’s not ridiculous, it’s prudent, for all they knew it could have been just stretched ligaments. They all more than likely had a plan mapped out that if the knee wasn’t better by a certain time they would scope it, they just found a little more or something to repair, it wasn’t a total acl/mcl repair. How many weeks are there till the season opener, 9 weeks? Even if he misses a couple games, as he has before, we should be fine, it is what it is. Jenson tried to do the whole stem cell thing on his wrecked knee and it never healed, God love him for the effort in the game he played. The year he went down we had I believe at least 2-3 injuries on the O-line, Goedke was miss placed so we had a terrible time, as stated in Joes article. Now if it was ME, I would have had it looked at before just to make sure what was up in there but that’s me.
July 12th, 2025 at 6:12 pm
Cardiac kidz Says:
What blows is clearly the knee has been an issue. To play the wait and see this late into the off-season is ridiculous.
———————————————————————————-
Licht or Bowles are not doctors; they handled the issue based upon what they were told by highly competent doctors & trainers. Recovering from injuries is not an exact science. It sucks, but blaming the team for mishandling the situation is what is ridiculous.
July 12th, 2025 at 6:15 pm
Charlie Heck father is Andy Heck…….the O-LINE coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. One of the best in the NFL. I’m sure Charlie Heck report to training camp, in shape, and ready to go. The only player on this roster we can’t afford to lose is Baker Mayfield. Because Kyle Trask doesn’t have any significant experience in the NFL
July 12th, 2025 at 6:28 pm
FilthyAnimal
Spot on. It’s amazing how many trained Orthopedic Surgeons post here.
But it’s not just qualifications. You young guys obviously haven’t had any real heal challenges or scares.
I’m no Doc but my life experience has seen many, many health issues that didn’t have either-or simple fixes. Many require balancing conflicting issues.
July 12th, 2025 at 6:33 pm
LakelandBuc … ‘The only player on this roster we can’t afford to lose is Baker Mayfield.’
You’re absolutely right that Kyle Trask is an unknown due to no significant experience. But how far do you think our defense would get if we lost Vita Vea for the season? Or how about if we lost Tristan Wirfs for the whole season?
Mayfield, Vea & Wirfs are our big dogs. Losing any one of them for a significant number of games is bound to take a toll.
July 12th, 2025 at 6:34 pm
Stop the whining Cardiac kidz……
It’s not your damaged knee that has to be managed throughout a HOF career.
Don’t you think Wirfs has tried to do what is best for his future AND what’s best for his team this offseason in managing what obviously became a ‘lingering’ knee injury?
The expectation was that treatment, rest and then strengthening would resolve the problem. It didn’t. Wirfs apparently kept having ‘setbacks’ and the knee wasn’t getting significantly better with rest and treatment….
The report was doctors were surprised by what they found when they went in arthroscopically – as in – there was more damage to repair than what they were able to see with imaging….
It’s obvious that MRIs were not showing everything – it happens…
I don’t think this knee situation is a big deal regarding Wirfs’ future or that its all that serious – its just going to take a couple months or maybe slightly longer to fully heal now that the knee has been surgically cleaned up.
Better to have taken this step now instead of a month or 2 from now…
Wirfs will be back on the field no later than the 5th game by all indications – and the Bucs have almost 2 months to monitor his progress and decide whether a PUP designation (missing 4 games) is necessary or not.
They also have almost 2 full months for Carberry to coach up Heck and for Heck to get lots of reps with the 1st team. And if they aren’t feeling great about Heck after watching him play quite a bit – there’s also plenty of time to research and decide who to bring in as additional insurance…..
Fans really need to stop looking for someone to blame in this situation
July 12th, 2025 at 7:21 pm
an open letter to the big fella…..
maybe no more jumping from pools tristan….(am i right)
maybe no more carrying logs like a vermont woodchopper… 🙂
if you still wanna rock the size 5xl flannel shirt, go ahead…but you are no longer a woodsman…
if you still wanna carry something around…carry tez around in his underwear during a rookie hazing…maybe even toss him in a pool if that works for ya…
otherwise chill big fella…those are expensive azz knees now…
on another note……get well soon wirfmeister !
July 12th, 2025 at 7:37 pm
Hopefully it will save him some energy for the super bowl push.
July 12th, 2025 at 7:45 pm
Everything I read was it was an MCL that was the knee injury.
Most of the time, the literature suggests rest over surgery for the MCL. As someone else said, clearly the MRI was not showing that it was a surgery case.
After rest and then attempting to do things again on the knee, it appears the Bucs and Wirfs backed off again.
It feels to me this clearly was within protocol on the injury.
My concern really is on the length of recovery time. I am tending to be a little more pessimistic on length of recovery than some others on the site.
July 12th, 2025 at 8:04 pm
Don’t pace the aisles at Whole Foods for too long, I just dropped 2 bills there. Ribs are pricey these days! The Traeger makes it worth it though 🙂
July 12th, 2025 at 8:15 pm
OT Charlie Heck’s dad is OL coach for a team that’s sole flaw is always being short of OTs and he signed elsewhere for a pittance? I am not sure that bodes well!
July 12th, 2025 at 8:41 pm
👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆
maybe he doesn’t want to play for his dad.
July 12th, 2025 at 8:55 pm
seems like it would be prudent to add some oline depth before season starts
July 12th, 2025 at 9:32 pm
best option is to…………………clone the man
July 12th, 2025 at 10:47 pm
Joe says, “… Wirth missing time has come to be expected.”
Duh!
That is why is was such a mistake not to spend an extra $400K to help Skule who has a proven track record and experience in the system and with the other players on the OL.
The off-season media mantra has been continuity on the offense and specifically on the offensive line. But, they let the proven swing tackle walk over $400K???
I have hope for Heck. I like his run blocking on film. Maybe he can be coached up to pass block adequately.
But, keeping Skule and bringing in Heck for a camp battle was affordable. Just having Heck to relieve Wirth and Skule in the fourth quarter when ahead with Tucker running with the ball to wind down the clock would have been an affordable way to protect Wirth and Skule when ahead by two scores or more.
Now, any injury to Skule, and the Bucs will be hoping for miracles.
July 12th, 2025 at 11:03 pm
toopanca Says:
July 12th, 2025 at 10:47 pm
Please… jeezus. Just stop the nonsense. Heck can probably do as well as Skule. He has starting experience and is more athletic.
Beeyaatches be beeyaatchin’.
July 12th, 2025 at 11:30 pm
What? me worry?
July 12th, 2025 at 11:36 pm
@toopanca,
Who is Wirth?
July 13th, 2025 at 4:55 am
You gotta love the fans that are so sure that if they had a knee injury and they got mutable MRIs that showed nothing and their Doctors told them rest and rehab would be all that’s required to recover fully. They’d know that the Doctors (The best orthopedic surgeons in the world) were wrong and they’d demand to have a knee surgery of some kind.