TAMPA, Florida – Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ defensive attack, Vita Vea, never gave up hope of returning this season, despite fracturing his ankle in week 5.
The 12th choice of the 2018 general draft was activated from the injured reserve last week, and after two days of practice and a walk-through last week, he played 32 snaps in the NFC Championship Game, in which the defense fired Aaron Rodgers five times.
Next: Facing Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs at the Super Bowl LV in Tampa, at Raymond James Stadium.
“Obviously, I was discouraged that night, but I think that night I said to myself, ‘If you just go through it, go through rehab, you might have a chance,'” said Vea, speaking on Friday for the first time. since suffering the injury on October 8.
“They told me that I might have a small chance of doing that, so I took what they said and really took it seriously.
The injury itself hurt for about 20 seconds, he said, the result of a teammate’s roll. He was still relatively in a good mood, except that he had to adjust to his crutches.
“I knew that at the end of the day I would be back,” said Vea. “I said to myself, ‘I’ll be back’.”
The defensive attack Ndamukong Suh put Vea with his personal chef so that he could follow a healthy diet and keep his weight below 136 kg. He trained with the strength team six days a week to maintain his strength and endurance. He even attended all defensive line meetings and defensive meetings to get stuck in the game and think positively.
The Bucs’ board and technical staff did not plan to remove him from the injured reserve, but coach Bruce Arians began to observe his training. He started running about four weeks ago. The Aryans said to him, “We will continue to win and you work, and everything will be fine.”
“It is always uplifting when you hear someone say that to you and obviously when the head coach says that to you,” said Vea. “I think it was like our little thing with each other, every time we saw each other, we looked at each other like, ‘Keep winning, I’ll show up.’ And I ended up playing last weekend, which was a great blessing for me. “
The Bucs did not have Vea in his 27-24 loss to the Chiefs in Week 12, where they struggled to get pressure on Mahomes and dropped out of high school play. Vea’s size usually commands double teams, which frees Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul – who received 3.0 and 2.0 bags of Rodgers last week, respectively – to reach the quarterback.
“Vita is a big impact,” said Barrett. “We definitely missed Vita. In the first sack, the quarterback was trying to get to where Vita was, but he couldn’t do it because Vita was right there and he flushed right at me, and it worked perfectly. Just from that, not even a running defense – running defense, he’s a really important piece there – wherever Vita is, he’s going to take the gap next to him on both sides, and maybe one more gap, so we definitely lost him there. “
The Chiefs had to make some significant changes to the offensive line this season, with their last setback being the loss of left tackle Eric Fisher due to a broken Achilles tendon in the AFC Championship Game. They are also unlikely to have the right to tackle Mitchell Schwartz, who continues to recover from a back injury, not to mention the loss of left guard Kelechi Osemele due to torn tendons in both knees, and Laurent Duvernay-Tardif and Lucas Niang opted. for not doing that. year due to concerns about COVID-19.