Green Bay Packers: 15 best free agent acquisitions of all-time
By John Buhler
49. . DT. (1996-01). Santana Dotson. 10. player
Best free agent acquisitions in Green Bay Packers history: 10. Santana Dotson
Santana Dotson was a unanimous All-American playing for the Baylor Bears in 1991. However, that would only merit him a fifth-round selection by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 1992 NFL Draft. Despite being underdrafted, Dotson would be named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year for the Buccaneers, thanks to his 10-sack campaign at defensive tackle.
While he never came close to reaching that total at any point of his nine remaining NFL seasons, he was a valued commodity both on the Tampa Bay defense and the new team he joined in 1996. Dotson signed as a free agent with the 1996 Packers. In his first year with The Pack, Green Bay went all the way to the Super Bowl and won.
After beating the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI, Green Bay would fall the next year in the title bout to John Elway’s Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXXII. Dotson would play along the Packers’ defensive line through the 2001 NFL season before hanging up the spikes at age-32.
In six years with the Packers, Dotson amassed 265 combined tackles in 88 games for the Packers, 83 of them being starts. He had 26.0 quarterback sacks in his half-dozen seasons with Green Bay, very much a key to the Packers’ pass-rushing prowess in the late 1990s.
Though not as dynamic as Sean Jones, Dotson’s tenure with the club is twice as long and it gives him the slightest edge of getting into the top-10. Regardless, he played still played in the shadow of Reggie White along the Packers defensive line at defensive tackle during his first three years with the team.
Despite playing in just 12 games in 2000, his 6.0 quarterback sacks on the season were the most Dotson put up in Packers uniform. Again, keep in mind that he was playing defensive tackle almost exclusively. You are seeing a trend here, right? The Packers almost always seem to crush it when they target defensive front-seven players in free agency during the salary cap era. Dotson certainly fits the billing.