An MVP, championships and Pro Bowls made up Tennessee football’s NFL presence the past 10 years. Here are the top former Volunteers from 2010 to 2019.
Even with a mediocre decade in terms of college production, Tennessee football was still well-represented in the pros. Numerous NFL superstars who came from Rocky Top graced the field at the next level during the 2010s.
If you count the 2019-2020 season as part of last decade, which we are doing, then UT had one player win an MVP, 10 make at least one Pro Bowl and 13 win at least one Super Bowl championship. A few guys managed to be a starter every single year during the decade.
Simply put, while Tennessee football fell off as a program, its NFL productivity remained at the highest level during the past decade. To be fair, since this was largely with players taken in the 2000s, we’ll have to say how the 2020s go since the Vols went three years this past decade with no players being drafted.
Before looking that far ahead, though, in this post, we’re going to rank the best NFL careers during the 2010s. Our rankings are based on production and number of years contributing. We are taking to account number of years in the pros, number of games played, number of starts, accolades earned and championships.
Every person in the top 10 either started every single season in the pros during the 2010s or had multiple variations of accolades, whether that be multiple Pro Bowls, a Pro Bowl and a championship or a Pro Bowl and a postseason award. We’ll have an honorable mention of people who didn’t meet that criteria but still deserved a shoutout.
When you break all of those things down, it’s clear that Rocky Top was loaded with pro talent this past decade. So let’s look at the Vols who made that possible. These are Tennessee football’s 10 best players in the NFL from 2010 to 2019 based on production.