The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ social media account posted a hype video teasing the upcoming season. The clip spliced together wide receiver Tez Johnson’s signature touchdown flip with real footage of a bison attack on a man at Yellowstone National Park.
The caption read, “Flipping out because it’s almost football season.” While some laughed it off, many others saw the joke as insensitive. After all, the accident left a 65-year-old hospitalized with a broken femur. The Buccaneers eventually deleted the post, but the backlash didn’t stop.
The Buccaneers Deleted the Post Only to Fuel the Backlash
Carl McDaniel was walking near Bridge Bay Campground with his 13-year-old grandson last Friday evening when a bison, agitated after a passing truck driver honked at it, charged toward them.
McDaniel told his grandson to run one way while he ran the other, hoping to draw the animal off. It caught up to him anyway, launching him into the air before he crashed to the ground. He broke his femur in four places and needed surgery.
The incident was a painful ordeal for McDaniel, but it quickly turned him into an internet meme. The Buccaneers joined the trend before ultimately deleting their post, a move that only fueled further backlash.
The Bucs deleted an edited hype video that featured the Yellowstone grandpa getting attacked by a bison — after a bunch of blowback from fans who thought it was in poor taste.
The OG viral video showed the 65 year old getting tossed ~8 ft in the air, suffering serious injuries. pic.twitter.com/C85knX1TDg
— michael j. babcock (@michaelbabcock) July 14, 2026
TMZ Sports executive producer Michael Babcock reposted a screenshot of the deleted video, writing that the team removed it “after a bunch of blowback from fans who thought it was in poor taste.”
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The account College Transfer Portal went a step further and reuploaded the actual clip, captioning it “WILD” and adding that it was “Crazy they posted it in the first place.”
WILD: Here’s the recently deleted Tampa Bay Buccaneers video edit with the Yellowstone bison incident.
Crazy they posted it in the first place 🤯 pic.twitter.com/bClzQiYsid
— College Transfer Portal (@CollegeFBPortal) July 15, 2026
Some people sided firmly against the team. A user named Milly Jo called the post “so tone deaf,” pointing out that McDaniel “was literally trying to save his grandson and was injured badly.”
Others thought the backlash was overblown. One user, TimmYD, wrote that “this country has become so soft, no sense of humor!!”
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Polymarket Football’s account on X wrote, “Pretty sure that guy was seriously injured… but go off Tampa.” After the video was deleted, the account said, “As expected the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have deleted their social media post with the Bison flip.”
Another account, Katie, posted a simple observation: “deleting it just makes it worse.” That comment picked up thousands of views, and one reply summed up the internet’s strange feedback loop pretty well, saying they’d planned to move on with their day but instead found themselves still talking about it. Katie’s response was blunt: “Just drawing more attention to it.”
That’s arguably the real story here. The Buccaneers likely expected the backlash to fade after deleting the post. Instead, it did the opposite, turning a single post into a multi-day news cycle.
As for McDaniel, he’s recovering and already sounding like a man with perspective. He told CNN the bison had every opportunity to seriously hurt or kill him while he was down, and simply didn’t.
He was up and standing again by Monday, the same day the Bucs posted the video that used his worst moment as a punchline.
The Buccaneers haven’t issued any public statement explaining the post or its removal.
