Mark Cotney is a former professional American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 player who played in 10 NFL seasons from 1975-1984 for the Houston Oilers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a professional American football franchise based in Tampa, Florida, U.S. They are currently members of the Southern Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League – they are the only team in the division not to come from the old NFC West...

. Selected by the Buccaneers in the 1976 NFL Expansion Draft

1976 NFL Expansion Draft

The 1976 National Football League Expansion draft was held on March 30 – 31, 1976. The expansion teams, the Seattle Seahawks and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, each selected 39 players from the other 26 NFL teams. When one player was chosen from an existing team, that team was then permitted to...

, he was a member of the original winless 1976

1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season

The NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers played their debut season in 1976, making league history as the first team to play an entire 14-game season without winning or tying a single game. They did not score until their third game and did not score a touchdown until their fourth. They lost by a touchdown or...

 team and the 1979

1979 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season

The 1979 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season saw the team make a dramatic leap from being a winless expansion franchise, perceived as mistake-prone and ridiculed by the rest of the league, to becoming a serious contender for the National Football League championship...

 team that played in the 1979 NFC Championship game. He retired in 1986 on advice from his doctors, after suffering two cracked vertebrae in his neck while tackling Gerald Riggs

Gerald Riggs

Gerald Antonio Riggs is a former American football running back in the National Football League for the Atlanta Falcons from 1982-1988 and the Washington Redskins from 1989-1991....

 in a 1985

1985 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season

The 1985 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season began on a hopeful note, with the hiring of Leeman Bennett as the team's head coach. A massive turnover of personnel occurred, which included the offseason career-ending injury of Lee Roy Selmon, the trade of Hugh Green, and the early-season signing of Steve Young...

preseason game. He continues to live in the Tampa area, where he operates a dry-cleaning business.