Best Green Bay Packers player to wear No. 72 knows he didn't get credit he deserved

Welcome back to our series covering the greatest Green Bay Packers players to wear every jersey number from No. 0 to No. 99.

After kicking off the 70s with one of Aaron Rodgers' most reliable offensive linemen at No. 70, we switched to the other side of the football at No. 71 with Vince Lombardi's first defensive captain. But here at No. 72, we're going back to the offensive line. Only this time, we'll be highlighting one of Brett Favre's best blockers, one who never quite got the credit he genuinely deserved.

Ahead of the reveal, however, as has been our routine throughout the series, let's kick things off by first looking at every player who's worn No. 72 for the Green & Gold over the years.

Dick Afflis, OT/DT
Todd Auer, LB
Brant Banks, OT
Solon Barnett, OT/G
Brad Bedell, OT
Warren Bone, DE
Greg Boyd, DE
Ben Davidson, DE
Earl Dotson, OT
Steve Gabbard, OT
Garth Gerhart, C
Mark Hall, DE
Jerry Helluin, DT
Dick Himes, OT
Tom Johnson, DE
Caleb Jones, OT
Royal Kahler, OT
Jim Kekeris, OT
J.D. Kimmel, DT
Kit Lathrop, DT
Forrest McPherson, OT
Johnny Miller, DT
Tom Neville, G/OT
Brad Oates, OT
Harvey Salem, OT
Jason Spitz, G
Steve Wright, OT

Finishing in a close second for this slot is longtime right tackle Dick Himes, who was an underrated offensive lineman in his own right. A third-round pick of the Packers in 1968, the Ohio State alum started 104 of the 135 regular-season games in which he appeared and did his job extremely well. But as his career just so happened to begin the year after Lombardi's last as Green Bay's head coach, he doesn't get the credit he deserves, as he was a good player on some not-so-good teams.

But that's not the case with our winner here at No. 72, Earl Dotson, who was a good player on some very good Packers teams in the 1990s and into the 2000s.

Earl Dotson was vastly underrated during his 10-year run with the Packers

Despite not suiting up for a high-profile program at the collegiate level, first playing at Tyler (TX) Junior College and then at Division II Texas A&I, Dotson was taken by Green Bay in the third round of the 1993 NFL Draft with the 81st overall selection.

The 6-foot-4, 315-pounder served in a reserve role for his first two seasons before taking over as the team's starting right tackle in 1995, which was the year Brett Favre won the first of his three consecutive NFL MVPs and also the season in which the Packers made the NFC Championship Game for the first time ever.

Yes, the pair of NFL Championship Games in which they appeared in 1966 and 1967 could basically be viewed as NFC title games, as Green Bay had to win those for the right to go to the first two editions of what we now call the Super Bowl (then the AFL-NFL World Championship Game), but that's beyond the point.

The point is that the Packers hadn't been genuine title contenders in nearly three decades, and while Green Bay lost that '95 conference championship to the rival Dallas Cowboys, they won the Super Bowl the following year with a win over the New England Patriots and made a second straight appearance the year after that, losing to the Denver Broncos.

And Dotson was an absolute rock for all of it, missing just four games during that three-season stretch. And he only missed one game in the two seasons that followed. But his reliability wasn't his only asset, as he was extremely good at his job. But just like his teammates in the trenches, his contributions went overlooked, as he never received a single Pro Bowl or All-Pro selection.

In fact, the only member of the Packers' offensive line during that successful stretch to earn any sort of individual accolade was center Frank Winters, who was elected to the Pro Bowl in 1996. And up until July 2026, when Dotson, who retired following the 2002 season, finally got the call he'd been waiting nearly 25 years to get, Winters was also the only one from that group to be inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame.

So, not only was Dotson disrespected back then, but it took him quite a while to get the real respect he deserved from the organization. And ahead of his induction, he had no problem discussing the disrespect, at least the disrespect from his playing days.

"I was underrated, be real about it," Dotson said. "The years I should've made the Pro Bowl, didn't make it. I'm not saying that because I thought that; I'm saying that because the coaching staff thought that. Mike Holmgren thought that. You just keep on marching on, but do I think I should've got a little more credit? Yes."

Well, Dotson certainly gets his credit here as the best Packers player ever to wear No. 72.

Other Green Bay Packers jersey honorees

This list will be updated daily until all 100 entries are complete, so be sure to check back in with Lombardi Ave for updates.

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Earl Dotson was vastly underrated during his 10-year run with the Packers

Other Green Bay Packers jersey honorees

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