Lavonte David on late Geno Smith hit: 'I wouldn’t have hit him if I thought he wasn’t going to stay in bounds'

Lavonte David

It was a sloppy game that should’ve been easy work for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday against the New York Jets. After all, didn’t former Jets CB Darrelle Revis ‘spill the beans’ on their tendencies?

But instead, they just couldn’t do much of anything right as rookie QB Geno Smith led his team to an inprobable victory, capped off by none other than linebacker Lavonte David, who handed the Jets a game-ending victory by way of a late hit out of bounds.

With no timeouts left, Smith scrambled toward the sideline with David in hot pursuit, who didn’t let up and drew the bone-headed 15-yard penalty that put the Jets in field goal range. You just can’t get any bone-headed than that, plain and simple. “I wouldn’t have hit him if I thought he wasn’t going to stay in bounds,” David said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “They said he was out of a bounds so the guy called the flag. To me, he was in bounds.”

Some may look to blame David for the loss, but in all actuality, the Bucs as whole lost this game long before that penalty. They had 12 previous ones that certainly played a part and an offense that just couldn’t capitalize on some opportunities for scores throughout.