Player
SirVocea Dennis
LB · Buccaneers
SirVocea Dennis: facts drawn from the play-by-play.
From 11 rookie tackles to 96 in 2025 — the late-round breakout Tampa needed.
TrendDennis defensive stats by season (all TB)
| Season | Games | Tackles | TFL | Sacks | QB Hits | PD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 6 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2024 | 3 | 21 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2025 | 16 | 96 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 5 |
A 5th-round pick from Pitt in 2023, Dennis spent his first two seasons mostly inactive — just 9 games combined in 2023-24, with availability limited by injury and rotation. Tampa kept him on the roster as a 4-3 backer-in-waiting next to Lavonte David.
2025 was the breakout: 16 games, 96 combined tackles, 10 TFL, 3 sacks, 7 QB hits, 5 PDs. Every category leapt at once.
Combined tackles per season
| Season | Tackles |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 11 |
| 2024 | 21 |
| 2025 | 96 |
10 TFL in 2025 — tied for top 10 among all NFL off-ball linebackers.
MilestoneDennis' 10 tackles-for-loss in 2025 is the disruption headline. He paired that with 3 sacks and 7 QB hits — the rare combo of run-stopping and blitz finishing from a non-EDGE.
For context: his 2024 TFL count was 1, his 2023 count was 0. The 10 represents a complete identity reset in year 3.
96 combined tackles led the Buccaneers — and he just turned 24 in February 2026.
Rare2025 Buccaneers defensive tackle leaders
| Player | Pos | Tackles |
|---|---|---|
| SirVocea Dennis | LB | 96 |
| Tykee Smith | S | 77 |
| Lavonte David | LB | 73 |
| Antoine Winfield Jr. | S | 68 |
| Jacob Parrish | CB | 63 |
In 2025 Dennis outproduced Lavonte David in raw tackles — a sentence nobody saw coming after Dennis' 32 combined tackles across two prior seasons. The torch handoff at the Tampa Bay MIKE position appears to be underway.
David is in the back stretch of a Hall of Fame Buccaneers career. Dennis, at 24, is positioned to inherit the green-dot job in 2026.
Career: 128 tackles, 96 in one season — a 75% concentration in his breakout year.
SplitAcross his 3-year career, Dennis has 128 combined tackles — and 96 of them came in 2025. That's 75% of his career tackle output in his 3rd season, the kind of concentration normally seen with veteran late-bloomers or post-injury comebacks.
Dennis is neither: he's a young LB who just got the snaps for the first time in 2025 (only 9 prior games) and immediately produced like a starter.
From 0 sacks to 3, 0 TFL to 10, 0 PDs to 5 — every category went from zero or near-zero.
AnomalyDennis: 2023-24 combined vs 2025
| Stat | 2023-24 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Games | 9 | 16 |
| Tackles | 32 | 96 |
| TFL | 1 | 10 |
| Sacks | 1 | 3 |
| QB Hits | 1 | 7 |
| PD | 1 | 5 |
Stack his first two seasons together against 2025: 9 games of small-sample backup work vs 16 games of full-time MIKE. Tackles went from 32 to 96 (3x). Sacks 1 → 3. TFL 1 → 10. QB hits 1 → 7. PD 1 → 5.
It's the cleanest 'finally got the snaps' line in the database — and the volume signals he can be Tampa's long-term answer next to a free-agent OLB pairing.
96-tackle, 10-TFL season in year 3 — a profile that matches early-career Roquan Smith and Bobby Wagner.
ComparisonYear-3 LBs who posted 90+ tackles AND 10+ TFL are a short list of stat-anchor names. Dennis joins a profile that includes early-career Roquan Smith (chase-and-tackle run defender) and Demario Davis (late-bloomer Saint who became a perennial top-10 LB).
The 3 sacks and 7 QB hits add a blitz layer that neither Wagner nor Smith had at the same career point. The next contract conversation in 2026 will rest on whether 2025 was the new floor — or a single-season spike.
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