The Tampa Bay Buccaneers reduced their roster to 75 players on Monday by waiving 10 players, placing guard Davin Joseph on injured reserve and moving defensive end Da'Quan Bowers to the reserve/physically-unable-to-perform (PUP) list.
All of the players waived by the team on Sunday were either rookies or first-year men: RB De'Anthony Curtis, long-snapper Andrew DePaola, wide receivers Greg Ellingson and Ed Gant, tight end Collin Franklin, punter Eric Guthrie, tackle Mike Ingersoll, linebacker Brian Smith, safety Tramain Thomas and cornerback Marquese Wheaton.
Franklin, Gant and Ingersoll first joined the Buccaneers last year. Franklin spent most of the season on the practice squad but did appear in two regular-season games. Gant was on the same practice squad for all 17 weeks and Ingersoll joined that eight-man unit for the last three games of 2011.
Curtis, DePaolo, Guthrie, Thomas and Wheaton were all undrafted free agents added since May. Ellingson and Smith were first-year players who had been in the league previously.
Head Coach Greg Schiano confirmed on Saturday that Joseph had suffered a season-ending knee injury in Friday night's win over New England. Joseph will have surgery on Monday and will spend the rest of the season on injured reserve. Bowers has been on the active/PUP list since the beginning of training camp due to an Achilles injury suffered in May. His move to the reserve/PUP list means he will miss at least the first six weeks of the season, though he will be eligible to return to the active roster after that.
The deadline to get down to 75 players was 4:00 p.m. ET on Monday. The Bucs had actually started the process on Thursday when they waived three other players to put the roster at 87.
