The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Missouri LB Josiah Trotter with the No. 46 overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft.<\/p>\n
Josiah Trotter perfectly defines the phrases “heat-seeking missile” and “plays with his hair on fire”. The 6’2″, 237-pound linebacker may not have his father’s size (262-pound Jeremiah Trotter), but Jeremiah did pass down his instincts against the run, and the younger Trotter has the speed and athleticism to capitalize.<\/p>\n
Also, Josiah’s older brother, Jeremiah Jr., was a fifth-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2024.<\/p>\n
The former 3-star<\/a> recruit began his college career at West Virginia in 2023 but didn’t play as a true freshman after suffering a torn ACL during spring practices. <\/p>\n He bounced back and was a starter as a redshirt freshman, though, collecting 92 tackles, four tackles for loss<\/a>, half a sack, an interception, and two passes defended. That was good enough to earn Big 12 Defensive Freshman of the Year and honorable mention honors. <\/p>\n Trotter transferred to Missouri ahead of this past season and racked up 84 tackles, 13 TFLs, two sacks, and a pass defended to become a first-team All-SEC performer.<\/p>\n Matt Holder<\/a> has been a part of B\/R’s Scouting Department for four seasons. He also writes about the Las Vegas Raiders and NFL draft for SB Nation’s Silver and Black Pride<\/a>, and co-hosts a YouTube Channel, Tape Don’t Lie<\/a>, providing film breakdowns and more draft prospect analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected Missouri LB Josiah Trotter with the No. 46 overall pick in the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-245543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}