Lavonte David Gets Candid With Vita Vea
September 1st, 2025
Called out.
A fun and telling moment was captured by the hot mic pinned to Lavonte David’s shirt.
The Buccaneers linebacker legend didn’t play in preseason against the Steelers in Pittsburgh two weeks ago. Smart! There was no need to risk David in a worthless game, but David was a busy guy on the sidelines studying his teammates.
He also was mic’d up. The Bucs published highlights of David’s vocal night on their YouTube channel.
One moment shown was David expressing his disappointment in Vita Vea in real-time, “Lift your head up,” David barked about Vea on the sidelines.
Interestingly, Todd Bowles was next to David at the time and appeared to almost wince, turning his head and scratching the back of it.
When Vea came off the field, David found a moment to confront his beastly defensive tackle.
“You had your head down on a tackle and you missed two sacks. You ever play football before?” David said to Vea.
Vea’s response? “It don’t count right now, alright?”
David laughed out loud in response. The two were seen later standing together, Vea in street clothes, smiling and cheering on teammates.
Joe sure hopes preseason doesn’t count and is little more than a mirage, especially after Bucky Irving ran 8 times for 12 yards with the first-team offense in that game.
September 1st, 2025 at 4:58 am
They don’t count, but they do matter.
September 1st, 2025 at 5:26 am
Dear lord, Sunday can’t get here fast enough. Tired of hearing Joe constantly complain about a lack of rushing yard in a MEANINGLESS preseason series (not game, series). Can’t you just post a couple photos of Rachel Watson over the next few days instead?
September 1st, 2025 at 6:03 am
The Bucs went vanilla on their play calling, so I don’t want to read too much in Bucky’s running performance in Buffalo.
We’ll know more starting on this Sunda in Atlanta. GO BUCS!
September 1st, 2025 at 6:33 am
Allen, you’re exactly right. We haven’t seen any game planning or creative play calling yet. Let’s just take a deep breath and see how things unfold when real bullets start flying.
BEAT ATLANTA!!
September 1st, 2025 at 7:01 am
Lavonte and Vea may be our 2 most important players this year. They are leading our defense whether they know it or not. We are better than last year but not only did we need a depth upgrade and some scheme tweaks, we need a different attitude. More swagger. Confidence. Tackling? It’s about “Want to”. We have always hustled and Bowles has them flying around. But we have 11 starters who have high ceilings. And we’ll see it as long as they are playing for each other and are all in on the task at hand. We’re going to need Vea, David, and Winfield at the top of their games and leading the defense. If that happens we’ll be a top 10 defense. And if we have that kind of swagger going on with our defense we are going to be tough to beat. Very, very tough to beat.
September 1st, 2025 at 7:24 am
I love Vita. However, I think he can be a bit lazy.
September 1st, 2025 at 7:39 am
Vita was mic’d up in that same video at the end. On the sideline telling guys about Brady missing him on a pass, then making Vita run routes after practice
lmaoooooooooo
September 1st, 2025 at 8:02 am
PRACTICE! WE TALKING BOUT’ PRACTICE?
September 1st, 2025 at 8:07 am
Ouch!
Hope that was a made for TV moment Joe.
Go Bucs!
September 1st, 2025 at 9:12 am
Great leadership by LVD. We need our vets to step up this year so the Bucs will be more consistent – stop playing down to the Panthers and Saints. Stop coming out flat in some games. LVD, Evans, and Winfield need to step up in the huddle and sidelines for the Bucs to play to a very high standard – in every game. LFG!
September 1st, 2025 at 9:24 am
Hopefully, our run game is as good as lost year, but I have a hit feeling that it won’t be. We need to rotate our RB’s fluidly and throw on 1st downs to have success again this year, in my estimation.
When we leaned too heavily on Bucky as the bellcow in that Washiington playoff game, our run game was not effective.
September 1st, 2025 at 9:26 am
*last year
And if Vita has bad habits in a preseason game in Year 8 or whatever it is for him, you can bet he has those same bad habits in the regular season.
Tighten up, Vita!
September 1st, 2025 at 9:40 am
Blwoes is the one who should be in Vita’s face about lack of effort and poor technique. But of course he’s not, he wants to be Mr Congeniality and he’s distracted trying to do two huge jobs in half time each.
This article tells you all you need to know about the Bucs failing Todd.
September 1st, 2025 at 9:49 am
That’s disappointing.
You play how you practice.
September 1st, 2025 at 9:57 am
Erik — neither our rushing offense nor our passing offense worked as well as normal in the Washington playoff game.
On designed run plays — we had an average gain of 4.33 yards per carry.
17 runs by Bucky for 77 yards and 1 run by White for 1 yard.
We went to drop back 30 times in the game.
15 of 18 by Baker for 185 yards passing.
Then 7 scrambles (not designed run plays) for 23 yards.
Also, 1 sack for minus 2 yards.
Finally, 4 penalties on Bucs during passing play. 1 penalty was declined. The other 3 penalties totaled minus 25 yards.
So, I get, 185 plus 23, minus 2, minus 25 for a total of 181 total yards when calling a passing play.
Since it turned out 1 penalty was declined it was 29 plays or 181 total yards or an average 6.24 yards per pass play.
So, I think the pass play production was not nearly as good as that 15-18 suggests — Baker scrambled too much without heavy pressure.
But overall, let’s be clear, it was the defense not getting us off the field that was the biggest culprit.
However, I disagree with the crowd saying our passing was much more effective than our run. They were both slightly below their season efficiency.
September 1st, 2025 at 10:21 am
Coen called an awful game against the Commanders!
September 1st, 2025 at 6:06 pm
What first team offense game did you see? I never once saw Baker Mayfield or Mike Evans in a game.
I guess you mean “some” of the first team offense. Sure seems like the QB and #1 WR are about as important as it gets – especially for this Bucs team. Without them, there isn’t much to key on except the RB.
Thankfully, as Joe has stated himself numerous times, the games are utterly worthless and meaningless. Both sides of the ball running a few very vanilla plays.