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Playing overrated/underrated with the Buccaneers

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

It's the dead part of the offseason, which means we play some weird games with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' roster. Like naming overrated and underrated players. Pete Prisco started with his list of most underrated players in the NFL, one for each team, and he came up with Demar Dotson.

He held out of some work this offseason because he wants a new deal, and, quite frankly, he's earned one. He has become their best lineman and he showed his versatility last year moving to the left side late in the season. He will be back on the right side this season.

Dotson will probably be the Bucs' best lineman again this year, though I'm sure the team's hoping that Donovan Smith will overtake him before long. And Dotson still deserves a new contract -- one he'll hopefully get without having to hold out, missing some valuable training camp time in the process.

Amusingly, the most overrated player on the Bucs' roster is an offensive lineman as well, at least according to Prisco. That would be Logan Mankins, the highly-paid, traded-for veteran who was mediocre-at-best last season.

It's hard to find a player on this team that fits this category, but Mankins still has the name, even if he doesn't have the same game he once had. Mankins came back this year in great shape, so maybe he's ready to get back to his old form.

That would be nice, but Mankins' decline was evident in his final two years with the Patriots. That's not likely to have changed with yet another year added onto his already battered and bruised body, no matter how much he worked out to get in better shape -- as if he wasn't in shape in previous years.

Personally, I would've named neither player. My most underrated player would probably be Johnthan Banks -- someone who looked genuinely awful at the start of last season, but who turned into a very good Tampa 2 cornerback over the second half of the season. I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do in year two in this system. Jacquies Smith might also have a solid case for being very underrated.

As for the most overrated player on the roster, I'm going to go with....well, I would have named Logan Mankins too, but that's boring now. So instead I'm naming Leonard Johnson, who hasn't been good at any point in his NFL career yet still seems to be hanging on to the starting cornerback job. How does he keep doing it? No one knows!