Buccaneers: 3 MVPs from Tampa Bay’s victory over Panthers

2. Jordan Whitehead

Jordan Whitehead quietly graded as one of the top defensive backs in the league Sunday afternoon and no one seems to be talking about it.

The safety finished the day with five tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, a pass deflection and an interception. Whitehead was all over the field and did an excellent job keeping the Panthers’ receiving attack in front of him and playing the position with confidence and a bit of a nasty streak.

In addition to Whitehead, several other defensive players including Antoine Winfield Jr. (11 tackles), Lavonte David (9 tackles, fumble recovery) and Ndamukong Suh (5 tackles, 2 sacks) could’ve easily been placed in this spot.

In the end, though, we elected to go with Whitehead simply because of the magnitude of his interception early on in the game and the impact he was able to make despite the fact that he is overlooked so many times on that defense.