Chris Wesseling of NFL.com unveiled the defensive All-Rookie team on Wednesday and the Bucs' first and second-round picks are on it. Tampa Bay took inside linebacker Devin White out of LSU with the fifth overall pick and took cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting one round later, not looking back since.
Despite fighting through injury early in the year, White has come on strong since returning Week 6. He has 66 tackles in that span, the most of any rookie. In the last three games, White has recorded his first (and second) career full sack, caught his first interception, scored his first defensive touchdown and last game he forced his third fumble, the most by a rookie in the NFL this season.
Also making the list for linebackers are Devin Bush of the Steelers and Cole Holcomb from the Redskins.
"After an early-season disappearing act, White began to play with confidence and impressive closing speed as a sideline-to-sideline, seek-and-destroy menace versus the Cardinals in Week 10," wrote Wesseling. "He went on to capture NFC Defensive Rookie of the Month honors for November, following a five-game stretch that featured 46 tackles, 2.5 sacks, five QB hits, one interception, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery returned for a touchdown."
White's NFC Rookie of the Month win made him the first Buccaneer to earn the award since 2010, when defensive tackle Gerald McCoy took home the honors.
Cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting, the Bucs' pick out of Central Michigan, was a relative unknown to most Bucs fans during the draft. He's not unknown anymore. Murphy-Bunting has helped the Bucs' secondary drastically improve in the latter half of the season to a unit that now has the most passes defensed of any team in the league. Splitting his time between nickel and outside corner, Bunting himself has six and leads the team, and all rookies this season, with two interceptions.
"Murphy-Bunting and Gardner-Johnson may be the pick of the litter from a group of early-season afterthoughts emerging as weekly contributors in the second half of the 2019 campaign," said Wesseling. "The former has teamed with fellow rookie Jamel Dean in an improving Bucs secondary, while the latter has been an upgrade on P.J. Williams in the slot."
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