The Tampa Bay Buccaneers probably woke up Tuesday thinking about training camp. Instead, their social media team is the one getting tackled.
It started with what looked like a harmless hype video. The team’s official X account posted a clip of a grandfather getting tossed by a bison at Yellowstone National Park, then cut to a player doing a flip celebration. The caption read: “Flipping out because it’s almost football season.”
The internet had opinions. None of them were kind.
The man in the video is Carl Isom-McDaniel, a retired grandfather who was visiting Bridge Bay Campground when the bison attacked. He ended up in the hospital with multiple broken bones. According to reports, he’s expected to survive and has actually joked about the whole thing from his bed. That didn’t stop fans from roasting the Bucs for jumping on a story that was still very much unfolding.
“Dude is in the hospital man. Show some class,” one comment read. Another posted: “I don’t wanna be that guy, but this is in pretty bad taste coming from the Bucs official account.”
The team hasn’t issued a statement yet. The post is still up as of this writing.
This isn’t just bad timing
The weird part is that the Buccaneers have a decent hype machine normally. Their social team has pulled off some clever stuff before. But this one reads like nobody in the room stopped to ask a simple question: should we really be memeing a guy who’s currently in a hospital bed?
The answer was no. Pretty clearly no.
Viral moments move fast, especially during the dead zone between minicamp and the preseason. Teams are desperate to generate engagement. But there’s a difference between being quick and being reckless. The Bucs chose reckless.
What happens next?
Training camp is supposed to be about roster battles and quarterback competitions. Now Tampa Bay is fielding questions about why their official account turned a man’s traumatic injury into clickbait. The organization is reportedly keeping quiet, probably hoping the news cycle moves on.
It won’t. Not yet anyway. This kind of backlash tends to stick around until there’s an apology, a deletion or at least some acknowledgment that they messed up. So far there’s been none of that.
The NFL season starts in a few weeks. The Bucs have bigger things to worry about than a deleted tweet. But they created a distraction they didn’t need, and now they have to deal with it.
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