Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 15 greatest pass rushers in franchise history
By Dan Parzych
11. player. 48. . DT. (1992-95). Santana Dotson
Seeing how Santana Dotson would go on to win NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year honors during the 1992 NFL season, it’s safe to say the Buccaneers earned an absolute steal from that year in the draft.
With all due respect to Dotson, it can be difficult sometimes to have high expectations surrounding players selected in the later rounds of the draft. Watching Tampa Bay land the former Baylor star in the fifth round turned out to be an absolute steal.
Right away, Dotson wasted little time making his presence felt as a rookie by finishing the 1992 NFL season with 10 sacks, while starting all 16 games for the Buccaneers.
Clearly, Dotson deserves to be on a list like this with this kind of impact. Even though his numbers were never as good as his rookie campaign over the next three seasons, the 23 sacks in 64 career games with Tampa Bay were still beyond impressive.
Dotson would go on to play the final six years of his NFL career as a member of the Green Bay Packers, which was difficult for some Buccaneers fans to watch, especially after he added 26 sacks in six years to his career total.
Most likely, Dotson would have been able to put up similar numbers if things were able to work out for him in Tampa Bay instead of having to watch him go to Green Bay, which made this situation even more difficult to process at the time.
On a positive note, even if they weren’t all starts, at least Dotson can always say he never missed a single game during the four years spent with the Buccaneers, which seems tough to accomplish these days.