It's only right that the hometown hero, Derrick Brooks, be crowned as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers greatest player to date. Ok, so, Brooks might not exactly be from Tampa Bay, but he was born in Pensacola, Florida and he did spend his collegiate football years as a member of the Florida State University Seminoles. So, close enough. Derrick Brooks was one of those linebackers that had superior vision and would always find himself at the right place at the right time to make the right play. His aggressive style of play and smothering effect on receivers and running backs caused dysfunction for his opposition.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers traded multiple second round picks to the Dallas Cowboys in order to select Derrick Brooks 28th overall in the 1995 NFL Draft. Tampa Bay would be the only destination where Brooks would play professional football for fourteen seasons. Within that decade and a half, he was the centerpiece to the team's championship defense that defeated the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII. The 11x Pro Bowler never missed a single regular-season game throughout his Hall of Fame career.