The Tampa Bay Buccaneers continued to reload their offseason roster for 2023 on Monday, signing former Green Bay Packers tight end Dominique Dafney to a reserve/futures deal. Dafney is the 16th player to ink such a deal since the end of the Buccaneers' 2022 season, and just the second who was not with the team at some point in 2022. Dafney and tackle Michael Niese are the two newcomers.
Dafney (6-3, 235) most recently spent a week on the Indianapolis Colts' practice squad in December, and prior to that he was on the Denver Broncos' practice squad for a month earlier in the season. He went to training camp this past summer with the Green Bay Packers but was waived in late August with an injury settlement.
Dafney went undrafted in 2020 and did not immediately sign with any team. He first entered the league as a rookie free agent with the Colts in August but was waived in the final roster cuts. He then signed to the Packers' practice squad and later got promoted to the active roster, seeing action in five games with two starts and catching two passes for 26 yards and a touchdown. He played another 10 games, with two starts, for the Packers in 2021 and added two more receptions for 34 yards.
Dafney made three stops at the collegiate level, starting at Iowa Western Community College before transferring to the University of Iowa. He played two seasons for the Hawkeyes, primarily on special teams, before moving on to Indiana State as a graduate transfer in 2019. He played fullback for the Sycamores for one season, rushing for 439 yards and adding 196 yards on 15 catches and scoring a total of seven touchdowns to earn second-team all-conference honors.
