{"id":158896,"date":"2025-08-19T17:09:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T17:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/158896\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T17:09:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T17:09:17","slug":"bucs-wr-jalen-mcmillan-neck-to-miss-time-after-awkward-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/158896\/","title":{"rendered":"Bucs WR Jalen McMillan (neck) to miss time after awkward fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"authors\">\n<li class=\"mugshot-shown\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/laine_jenna.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/>\n<p>Jenna LaineAug 19, 2025, 11:35 AM ET<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>Jenna Laine covers the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for ESPN. She started covering the Bucs for ESPN in 2016, but she has covered the team since 2009. Jenna is a former cheerleader at the University of South Florida and speaks to the consistency of the program as being one of the top best in the nation.<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>TAMPA, Fla. &#8212; <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"13e8b157-a75a-ff24-ae91-fa3d52ddf204\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/tb\/tampa-bay-buccaneers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> wide receiver <a data-player-guid=\"b5e1cc88-9406-358e-986f-e2ea21704108\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4430834\/jalen-mcmillan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalen McMillan<\/a> has what coach Todd Bowles described as a &#8220;severely strained neck&#8221; and the second-year player is &#8220;going to miss time&#8221; during the regular season, Bowles said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>McMillan fell awkwardly on the back of his head and neck area while leaping up to make a catch in the Bucs&#8217; second preseason game against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"debcd592-8d53-71f1-fc15-5c8b8ef9df6e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/pit\/pittsburgh-steelers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> on Saturday night. McMillan&#8217;s body folded in midair after he collided with defensive back <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4691005\/daryl-porter-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daryl Porter Jr<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Bucs wide receiver Jalen McMillan was upended by Steelers cornerback Daryl Porter Jr. in Saturday&#8217;s preseason game.\u00a0AP Photo\/Sue Ogrocki<\/p>\n<p>After being attended to by the medical staff, McMillan was able to walk off the field under his own power before being taken to a local hospital for evaluation, a source said. He was cleared to fly home with the team in a neck brace.<\/p>\n<p>Further testing back in Tampa revealed the extent of the injury, which Bowles said &#8220;shouldn&#8217;t be&#8221; career threatening.<\/p>\n<p>One of two third-round draft picks for the Bucs in 2024, McMillan led the NFL with seven touchdown catches in the final five weeks of the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>The Bucs are already without one of their top wide receivers, <a data-player-guid=\"20e1bec6-fb6a-9ab1-92e0-c13eff7a7d42\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3116165\/chris-godwin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Godwin<\/a>, who is recovering from ankle surgery and is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/45798165\/buccaneers-place-tristan-wirfs-chris-godwin-pup-list\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">still on the active\/PUP<\/a> list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jenna LaineAug 19, 2025, 11:35 AM ET Close Jenna Laine covers the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for ESPN. She&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[1232,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-158896","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115056540560586906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}