The Tampa Bay Buccaneers gave up a 17-point lead Sunday in a 34-23 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, aided by a deluge of turnovers in the third quarter.
One of them, a botched fake punt that was mishandled by reserve running back Giovani Bernard, sparked an odd postgame interaction in the locker room.
Tampa Bay called the fake on a 4th-and-1 in their own territory, and appeared to have blocked it well enough to convert, but the snap bounced off of Bernard and was recovered by the Bengals. Bernard appeared to be surprised by the snap.
As media tried to speak with Bernard about the play, the veteran special-teamer evidently wanted to avoid the conversation, according to multiple outlets:
#Bucs RB Giovani Bernard tries to dodge the media instead of answering questions about the botched fake punt. pic.twitter.com/CSWZSGEEs5
— PewterReport (@PewterReport) December 19, 2022
Interesting moment in the @Buccaneers locker room Gio Bernard didn’t want to chat with reporters but eventually did owning his mistake on the fake punt. pic.twitter.com/Tk9fiYvcGw
— JP Peterson (@FanStreamJP) December 19, 2022
After finally agreeing to answer questions, Bernard admitted that the turnover was his fault, but declined to get into the specifics when asked whether or not he knew that the fake had been called:
#Bucs RB Giovani Bernard talks about the botched fake punt. Indicated he didn’t know it was coming. Todd Bowles said he did. pic.twitter.com/2F0oIDuVYi
— PewterReport (@PewterReport) December 19, 2022
Bucs head coach Todd Bowles told the media that Bernard was aware of the play call, and simply didn’t catch the ball when it was snapped to him.
Whatever the reason for what transpired, it was a critical error that helped spark Tampa Bay’s epic collapse Sunday, in yet another embarrassing loss.
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