The NFL Draft remains the second-biggest event in the NFL calendar behind the Super Bowl. Like it or not, it also remains one of the biggest things that fans and media enjoy going back and analyzing to see “what could have been.”
Pro Football Focus has done a good job this offseason by starting a re-draft series that we have been tracking here on Bucs Wire. In their latest draft, they looked back on, it just so happens to be one of the more impactful ones in recent memory for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers franchise: The 2012 NFL Draft.
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In that draft, the Bucs had future Hall of Fame linebacker Lavonte David fall to them in round two. In this re-draft excercise, he would not make it to the Bucs there, he in fact, would be drafted much earlier by a worst-case scenario team.
PFF has the Carolina Panthers spending the ninth overall pick on the Nebraska linebacker since the Jacksonville Jaguars took their original pick of Luke Kuechly earlier in the process.
When it comes to David as a Panther, they write, “Because he played on subpar teams early in his career, David continues to be one of the league’s most underrated players. Through 13 seasons, he has earned an elite 90.6 PFF overall grade, powered by an incredible 94.0 PFF coverage grade. David’s durability and consistency have been on full display in Tampa Bay. He has played at least 800 snaps in every season of his career, and 2024 was the first time since 2016 that he didn’t earn at least a 72.0 PFF overall grade, though his 67.9 mark was still solid for a player of his age.”
While in this revisionist history of the NFL Draft, the Bucs and their fans wouldn’t know what they had missed out, they would know much longer pain. While Kuechly retired much younger than most expected, David is still going strong into his mid-30s, something rarely seen from the linebacker position.
This article originally appeared on Bucs Wire: Bucs lose Lavonte David to worst team possible in PFF’s 2012 re-draft