Tennessee football: Ranking Vols 5 first round NFL Draft picks this decade

The best player of the Butch Jones era, Derek Barnett burst onto the scene as a rookie and has already done enough to make it into the No. 4 spot on this list. If it weren’t for an injury last year that cut his season short to just six games, he’d likely already be No. 3 on this list.

But Tennessee football’s all-time leader in career sacks pretty early on validated being a first-round pick in the NFL Draft. After all, he was taken by the Philadelphia Eagles and helped turn on an elite pass rush that created a Super Bowl team even after losing its starting quarterback to a season-ending injury.

Barnett had five sacks, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery in 2017, and he most notably had the game-winning fumble recover in the Super Bowl to clinch it for Philly against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. Only six games in as a starter in 2018, he already had two and a half sacks.

Now, it’s likely he’ll have a drop-off this year due to trying to return from the injury. But you can bet that he’ll likely explode again onto the scene in a year, and by the end of 2020, he’ll probably be the second greatest first-rounder from the Vols taken in the draft this decade.