Pack Pros: Ranking the five best NFL defenders from NC State football

Don't miss out on any of our exclusive football, basketball and recruiting coverage. Click here to get your 30-day free trial!

NC State has produced quite a few notable Pack pros — but the majority of them have come on the offensive side of the ball, thanks to the likes of wide receivers Torry Holt, Haywood Jeffires and Mike Quick, offensive lineman Jim Ritcher and a slew of successful quarterbacks — including Roman Gabriel, Philip Rivers and Russell Wilson — among others. All of the aforementioned names have been to at least one Pro Bowl

However, the April 18 retirement of 11-year NFL linebacker Stephen Tulloch brings the focus onto former NC State players on the other side of the ball. Who are the best NFL defenders that played collegiately in Raleigh? Let’s take a look:

The undersized 2006 fourth-round pick of the Tennessee Titans quickly outplayed his draft position after leaving NC State with a year of eligibility remaining. Although he was not an immediate full-time starter, he did start four games his first two years in the league. He then started 12 and 13 games in 2008 and 2009, respectively, before four straight years of opening all 16 games in the middle of his team’s defense.

From the 2009 season (13 starts) until 2013, he annually notched at least 111 tackles and totaled 639 stops during that span. According to DetroitLions.com, although the eight years from 2008-15 include the 2014 campaign where he was lost for the year after three games, his 842 tackles during that span ranked as the eighth-most in the league. That total was boosted by an incredible 2010 season, his final in Tennessee, when he set a career high with 160 tackles, which ranks as the ninth-highest single-season total for a player since 2006.

After coming to Detroit in 2011, he helped the Lions to their first playoff berth since 1999. Tulloch led his team in tackles seven times (2009-13, 2015) and did not miss a single game during the first eight years of his professional career. His streak of 131 consecutive games was the longest among active defenders when it came to a close in 2014. He returned to start all 16 games in the middle of the Lions’ defense in 2015 and eclipsed triple-digit stops once again (107).

For his career, he logged 949 tackles, including 677 solo stops, 14.5 sacks, 26 passes defended, five interceptions and two forced fumbles; he also scored a touchdown on a fumble recovery. He played in 159 of a possible 176 regular-season contests (90.3 percent) and started in 113 of them. Pro Football Focus named him a second-team All-Pro in 2011.

In addition to starring on the field, he started the Stephen Tulloch Foundation in 2009 and was named the Lions’ Robert Porcher Man of the Year for his community service work four straight years from 2012-15. He also wrote a children's book last year, “The Little Linebacker,” and will travel to his mother’s hometown in Jamaica this June to build a new preschool.

The current head coach at Wake Forest (N.C.) Heritage High — where he heads a staff straight out of a Madden 2005 player’s dreams that also includes former Pack and NFL great Torry Holt and former Pittsburgh Steeler running back Willie Parker — played 12 seasons in the NFL. Even more impressive, he missed just one game during his career and started 171 of a possible 192 regular-season contests (89.1 percent).

Tackles were not an official NFL statistic prior to the 2001 campaign, but pro-football-reference.com credits him with 707 career stops. Additionally, he snared 31 interceptions — which he returned for 569 yards and five touchdowns — forced three fumbles, defended a total of 47 passes and recovered seven fumbles, two of which he returned for scores.

The 18th overall pick in the 1994 draft by the Minnesota Vikings was named the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year by Pro Football Weekly after starting every game and scoring a trio of defensive touchdowns for the NFC Central Division champions. His seven non-offensive touchdowns rank 53rd in league history, while his five interceptions returned for touchdowns rank 29th, per pro-football-reference.com.

According to The Wolfpacker contributor Tim Peeler, no former NCSU defender has ever started in more NFL games than Washington, who was in the opening lineup for 171 regular-season tilts and eight playoff contests. Rivers is the only Wolfpacker to ever play in more regular-season NFL games (176).

In addition to coaching — where he mentors 2018 four-star NCSU commit Ricky Person — the Durham native is a current member of the NC State Board of Trustees.

The jumbo-sized safety (6-3, 230 pounds) spent all of his playing career with the Cardinals, although he did sign with the Patriots prior to the 2013 season before suffering a season-ending injury to his Achilles in August and then tried to play in 2014 with the Chicago Bears before being released in August again.

Still, his 12 years in Arizona featured more memorable highs than most NFL careers. The back-line enforcer was a five-time Pro Bowl selection (2006, 2008-11) and was named to a trio of All-Pro squads by the Associated Press, earning first-team honors in 2009 and second-team laurels in 2006 and 2008. Pro Football Focus also named him a second-team All-Pro in 2011.

He holds an NFL record for most single-season sacks by a defensive back, with eight in 2005, and helped lead the Cardinals — who were 3-13 the year before they drafted Wilson — to Super Bowl XLIII in 2009. In 2012, he became the sixth player in NFL history to join the 25-25 club for sacks and interceptions , and finished his career with 27 picks and 25.5 sacks. He also holds club records with 15 forced fumbles and 95 passes defended, and finished his playing days with 893 total stops.

For a time, Williams was one of the best at compiling one of the NFL’s sexiest statistics — sacks. The No. 1 pick in the 2006 NFL Draft by the Houston Texans started every game in his first four NFL seasons before injuries marred his final two years in Texas. That led to him signing a mega deal with the Buffalo Bills as a free agent, where he missed just one game in four seasons but his production fell to the point that the team released him and he was picked up by Miami.

From his second professional campaign in 2007 through his third year in Buffalo in 2014, he notched 86.5 sacks and missed just 14 games. However, his last two years have resulted in just 6.5 sacks before he was cut by the Dolphins in February.

Williams is currently an unrestricted free agent with 97.5 career sacks, which ranks eighth among active players and 34th in league history. He was named to the Pro Bowl four times (2008-09, 2013-14) and earned a trio of All-Pro honors from the Associated Press — a first-team nod in 2014 and a pair of second-team laurels in 2007 and 2013.

In addition to terrorizing league quarterbacks — he eclipsed double-digit sacks in five of his 11 professional seasons — he has notched 399 tackles and forced 16 fumbles so far in his career, which may or may not continue.

Johnson played at NC State from 1980-83 and then went on to play his first two professional seasons with the USFL’s Jacksonville Bulls. He was selected 15th overall in the first round of the 1984 NFL Supplemental Draft of USFL and CFL players, but that only gave the Saints his NFL rights while he played for the league that eventually folded. He came to the NFL prior to the 1986 campaign.

Following the change of leagues, Johnson became known as the hard hitter in the Saints’ “Dome Patrol” linebacking corps that also included Pro Football Hall of Famer Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills and Pat Swilling. In 1991, Johnson, Mills and Swilling became the first trio of linebackers from the same team to start the Pro Bowl, and the following season marked the only time four players at the same position from one team made the all-star contest.

The NFL Network named them the No. 1 linebacker corps in league history, while The Times-Picayune in a 2011 piece called him “arguably the most unheralded member" of the group.

“I don’t know if there was anybody who hit harder,” then-Saints head coach Jim Mora was quoted as saying in the piece.

The middle linebacker earned Pro Bowl nods in half of his eight seasons with the team (1989-92). He notched more than 100 tackles three times, including a career-best 114 in 1988, and started 98 of the 120 games he played for the club. In his NFL career, Johnson tallied 669 stops, 12 sacks, 11 forced fumbles, four interceptions and five fumble recoveries. He helped his team boast the NFL’s No. 1 scoring defense in 1991 and 1992, while they ranked No. 2 in yards allowed both of those seasons.

The NC State media guide credits him with earning All-Pro honors in five different seasons, giving him the most of any Wolfpacker on either side of the ball, although his four Pro Bowl selections would fall in behind Holt (7), Rivers (6), Adrian Wilson (5) and Quick (5). Although he is far from the most well-known Pack Pro, he is the best NFL defender the school has ever produced.

——

• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker

• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker

• Like us on Facebook