NFL 100: At No. 100, Derrick Brooks, the 'consummate' leader who helped the Buccaneers win the Super Bowl (2024)

Welcome to the NFL 100, The Athletic’s endeavor to identify the 100 best players in football history. You can order the book versionhere. Every day until the season begins, we’ll unveil new members of the list, with the No. 1 player to be crowned on Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Entering his 13th year of retirement, Derrick Brooks has now been out of the sport almost as long as he played it, so the Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker has an even greater appreciation for the game he still loves.

“I’m very grateful to stay connected to the game, to see how it has grown and changed,” said the 48-year-old Brooks, still active and everywhere, just like his playing days, including work as an appeals officer for the NFL. “The game evolves, and I just appreciate that I can stay a part of this game, and I really feel the game is better.”

Brooks proudly leads off The Athletic’s NFL 100 project documenting the 100 best players in league history. He spent 14 seasons in the league from 1995-2008, all with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a core leader and central part of their Super Bowl championship in the 2002 season. Listed at 6 feet and 235 pounds, he came into the league with questions about his size but ushered in an era of smaller, quicker linebackers who had speed and range to match their tackling ability.

“Scoring is up, and you need to counter that athleticism on offense with athleticism on defense,” Brooks said. “It was starting to make that change when I came into the league. Linebackers were getting smaller. The “Will” linebacker position was not necessarily about blitzing. It was about playing in space and coverage. I’d like to think I was part of fostering that change, and even now, you’re seeing linebackers and safeties being used down in the box in athletic positions. I’d like to think I had an influence on that.”

Brooks, a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection in 2014, is in Canton with former Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp. Joining them this summer will be former Bucs safety John Lynch. Their old coach, Tony Dungy, is also there. Defensive back Ronde Barber, a finalist last year, soon could have a bust alongside his Tampa Bay teammates.

“It was like playing against a damn All-Star team, for real,” said Michael Vick, who faced Tampa Bay twice a year in his first six seasons with the Falcons. “It was a good group. Warren Sapp was still right there, Ronde, John Lynch, Simeon (Rice), Booger (McFarland). Especially when you have a guy to clog up the middle and a linebacker who can run from sideline to sideline, it doesn’t make your game any easier.”

Brooks’ durability and longevity are legendary, playing every game for 14 years and starting every one in his final 13. He played long enough to have intercepted John Elway and sacked Steve Young, who were in the NFL 35 years ago, but also to have picked off Aaron Rodgers and Ben Roethlisberger, still playing today. It’s a testament to his speed that he had more sacks against Vick (four) than any other quarterback.

“The thing I remember about Derrick, more so than anything, was not just his aggression but his football smarts,” said Vick, now part of Fox’s NFL coverage. “He was a guy who was going to put himself in position to be successful. Never really made mistakes. He was the consummate leader, too. Guys fed off his energy. He put me in the mindset of a Mike Singletary, all the highlights and things I’ve seen. I never feared anybody, never feared Derrick or playing against him, but I didn’t like playing Derrick. He was like a Ray Lewis, a guy who could win the game on defense. That’s who Derrick Brooks was.”

Brooks finished his career with 1,300 solo tackles, third-most in the NFL over the last 25 years, with 25 interceptions and 24 forced fumbles. He made the Pro Bowl 11 times and was a first-team All-Pro selection five times, but his best year was the Bucs’ championship season in 2002, when he scored an incredible four defensive touchdowns in the regular season. The only time a defensive player has scored more in one season was Ken Houston in 1971. Brooks added a fifth score to punctuate Tampa Bay’s Super Bowl win, intercepting Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon and taking it for a touchdown with 1:18 left, raising his arm in the final 10 yards for one of the most iconic plays in Tampa Bay history.

“The one area where he was so much better than most players was his ability to defend the pass,” said Gannon, the NFL MVP that season. “Where he was really good was playing in space with his eyes. They played so much zone coverage in the Tampa 2 where he was running down the field, reading the eyes of the quarterback. He’d recognize formation and the action off it, was such a smart guy and so instinctive. And he was one of the best tacklers I ever played against. He didn’t miss many. Just a great tackler, and a ballhawk.”

Cameras caught an interaction that year with Brooks and Eagles corner Troy Vincent after the regular-season game where he returned a fumble for a touchdown, with Vincent saying “You’re so lucky, man!” and Brooks responding “Why can’t I be in the right place at the right time?” Vincent answered: “Not all the time!”

Brooks said there’s good fortune to being around the ball, but he knows how much work went into putting himself into position to make those plays when the opportunity arrived.

“It’s more so why can’t I be rewarded for my preparation?” Brooks said. “That ’02 season was really special. Just going through the grind, the disappointment of coach (Tony) Dungy being fired, of coach (Jon) Gruden starting late with his staff. We had a lot of changes we had to overcome, but we were rewarded with the success of winning a Super Bowl.”

Gannon said as talented as the Bucs’ 2002 defense was, he remembered Brooks as the player he had to account for most, at a time where quarterbacks usually were aware of elite defensive backs but didn’t worry so much about the middle of the field. For all the talent around him, Brooks was seen as the one setting the tone for that defense.

“If you played in that defense and you didn’t match his intensity, it would be very noticeable Monday when you sat in the film room,” Gannon said. “That, I’m sure, was a challenge for guys like Warren Sapp and John Lynch, Simeon Rice and those guys. We watched the film that way. As an opponent, the one guy that jumped out was him. There’s honestly only a handful of guys as a quarterback I even concerned myself with at that position. That was a guy we sat down on Wednesday and said ‘How are we going to get a hat on him?'”

For the first 44 years of the Bucs’ existence, they had only one championship, but that changed in February with newcomer Tom Brady leading the way. Brooks, serving as co-chair of the host committee for a game that shared his famous number, was able to enjoy the first time a team won a championship on its home field, though he prefers a more active role in the process.

“It’s definitely better to play in a Super Bowl than plan one,” Brooks said with a laugh, having navigated a pandemic and all the restrictions that come with it to pull off a memorable game. “It was a lot of work, but I wouldn’t change a thing about it. We had to be nimble on our feet and make adjustments as protocols changed. But I definitely appreciate that they won Super Bowl LV at home, making history. All those things were symbolic to me, and I couldn’t be any more proud of the 2020 team, just as proud as when I played.”

In addition to his work with the NFL, Brooks has a hand in another championship team, working for Jeff Vinik, owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, as his executive vice president of corporate and business relationships. He had been president of the Arena Football League’s Tampa Bay Storm until the team ceased operations in 2017, and also works for Vinik with USF’s athletic department. He proudly posed with the Stanley Cup when the Lightning won last year. He still operates a charitable foundation, and a charter high school in Tampa now bears his name, along with former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo.

Brooks thinks of his playing days often, but not the same images that fans might recall. He said what sticks with him most vividly are the private moments between teammates, with coaches, the behind-the-scenes work that made all the on-field success possible.

“It’s not necessarily game-related,” he said. “It’s camaraderie moments. It’s locker-room memories. It’s competition in practice, the dog days of two-a-days, what we had to go through to build our team. The celebrated moments, everybody gets a chance to be a part of, if you attended the game or watch a video. The things you can’t see, that gives me the appreciation of the grind, the process of turning a franchise around. Those are the things I hold true as my most memorable moments. Being a part of that is truly humbling.”

(Illustration: Wes McCabe / The Athletic; photo: Doug Pensinger / Getty Images)