During his Sunday morning press conference, Bucs head coach Todd Bowles was asked for an update on the status of center Ryan Jensen, who hasn’t practiced with the team since before the preseason opener against the Steelers on August 11.

“It’s status quo right now,” Bowles said after the Bucs’ second preseason game. “We haven’t made the decision on the starting center. We’ll watch the tape and we’ll evaluate it from there. But it’s status quo – we didn’t think traveling on the plane would be any better for his knee, so we left him home.”

That’s not good news for Jensen – or the Bucs – with the season opener at Minnesota against the Vikings on September 10th looming in just three weeks.

Pewter Report broke the news on X on Thursday that Jensen did not travel with the team to New Jersey for Wednesday’s joint practice with the Jets or Saturday’s game, which Tampa Bay won, 13-6.

Jensen is still recovering from a severe knee injury that occurred on the second day of training camp in 2022, which caused him to miss the entire regular season. Jensen returned for the Bucs’ playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys but had a very rough outing as his knee was well enough to play on, but not near 100 percent.

“It was a pretty severe injury,” Jensen said following the Bucs’ 31-14 playoff loss to the Cowboys. “A lot of people I know were confused why I didn’t have surgery. I ended up tearing my MCL, my ACL, my PCL, I flipped my meniscus, I had a fracture and I had another little bone chip thing. It was a major injury.

“I was as fortunate as I could be with the way injury happened where I didn’t have to have surgery and it was able to heal on its own. Yeah, five months and trying to come back off of that, it was – some call it dumb, but I’m a football player and football players play football.”

The 32-year-old center opted not to have surgery and instead used stem cell therapy to let the torn ligaments, meniscus, and fracture heal on their own. Given the fact that Jensen has not really been able to practice two days in a row at any point in training camp that might have been a mistake in hindsight.

Ryan Jensen’s Knee Hasn’t Shown Much Improvement In Camp

Bucs C Ryan Jensen – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Ryan Jensen has yet to take part in any 11-on-11 team drills during training camp and only saw three reps in 1-on-1 pass protection-pass rush drills in one practice. The fact that he hasn’t practiced in nearly two weeks is not a sign that he’s progressing in the right direction.

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles was asked two weeks ago about Jensen’s status, and it hasn’t really changed much since then.

“That’s a good question,” Bowles said in early August. “I don’t know, honestly. I just go by what the doctors and trainers tell me and go by how he is feeling and [his] progress. Some days are good, some days are not as good. I will just wait for the answer and kind of go from there.”

Ryan Jensen Likely Won’t Start The Season Opener At Minnesota

During Sunday’s press conference when head coach Todd Bowles said “We’ll watch the tape and we’ll evaluate it from there,” he was talking about the preseason game tape from Robert Hainsey, who started all 17 regular season games at center for Ryan Jensen last year, and backup center Nick Leverett. That’s an obvious tell that Jensen isn’t in consideration to be the team’s starter for Week 1.

Bucs OL Nick Leverett and C Robert Hainsey – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

After Hainsey got the start at center against Pittsburgh in the preseason opener, Leverett, who started 10 games at left guard last year, got the start at center against the Jets and struggled early. Both of Ke’Shawn Vaughn’s first two runs versus New York went for negative yardage as Leverett was blown up on the play and allowed backfield penetration.

Hainsey did not dress for the Jets game and was held out as a precautionary measure.

“He was sore from the Wednesday practice, so we decided to keep him out,” Bowles said. “We didn’t feel like there was a need to put him in there. He got a lot of snaps on that Wednesday practice and on Thursday.”

The fact that Hainsey didn’t even suit up for the Jets game likely means he’s in the driver’s seat to start at center once again for the Bucs.

As for Jensen, if the Bucs put him on injured reserve before the final roster cutdown after the preseason finale versus the Ravens then he is done for the season and cannot return. However, if the Bucs keep him on the initial 53-man roster they can put him on injured reserve the next day. That would free up an open roster spot and would allow Jensen to possibly return to the team later in the year – if he can physically – after sitting out the first four games.