75 Gems as NFL Draft Reaches Diamond Anniversary (Nos. 1-25)

So the league's owners, prompted by Philadelphia's Bert Bell, got together and decided on May 19, 1935, to try something no other professional sports league in the world had done -- a draft. The format has become standard -- the picks were made in reverse order to the previous season's standings with the team with the worst record choosing first and the champion choosing last. It was visionary -- pro basketball, which came along more than a decade later, adopted it but baseball, then America's most popular sport, didn't have its first draft until 29 years later.

Maybe that's why Bert Bell became commissioner in 1946, when the NFL regrouped after World War II. Pete Rozelle may have been the man who made the NFL into America's game, but Bell's draft has now arguably become the second biggest event on the league's calendar.

The first draft was in Philadelphia Feb. 8, 1936, and this year marks the 75th.

So here are 75 random moments:

Prehistory

1. 1936: Jay Berwanger, a "back'' from the University of Chicago was the first pick in the first draft just as he had been the first winner of the Heisman Trophy in 1935. He was chosen by Bell's Eagles, 2-9 the previous season. (No wonder Bert wanted a draft). He chose not to play in the NFL because it was minor league compared to college football.

2 . 1936: Positive news: four of the players picked in draft No. 1 made it to the Hall of Fame. It was still the rich getting richer. Two of them, tackle Joe Stydahar of West Virginia, sixth overall, and guard Danny Fortmann, the 78th pick from Colgate, played for the Bears. Another, "back'' Tuffy Leemans, the 18th overall pick from George Washington, played for the Giants. The fourth was Wayne Milner, an end from Notre Dame who went in the eighth round to the Boston Redskins, the same team that 75 years later is in Washington and has been treated badly by the draft in the decade its been owned by Dan Snyder.

3. 1938: Corby Davis, a fullback from Indiana, was the first overall pick by the Cleveland Rams, now in St. Louis via Los Angeles. Like Berwanger, Davis looked down his nose at the NFL. The second pick, by Art Rooney's Pittsburgh "Pirates,'' also came from Indiana, tailback Frank Filchock. He played until 1950 with three years out for World War II, with his best year with the relocated Washington Redskins in 1939 when he averaged four yards a carry.

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Humongous Hauls

4. The Pittsburgh Pirates morphed into the Pittsburgh Steelers and during World War II combined with Philadelphia as the "Steagles'' to overcome the loss of manpower to the armed forces. After the war, they continued to struggle. In 1968, they went 2-11-1, fired coach Bill Austin, hired Chuck Noll and went 1-13 in 1969. But it got better quickly and in 1974, the year they won the first of four Super Bowls in six seasons, they drafted four Hall of Famers with their first five picks: Lynn Swann in the first round; Jack Lambert in the second; John Stallworth in the fourth and Mike Webster in the fifth. The guy who was left out was defensive back Jimmy Allen, another fourth rounder. He had 31 interceptions in his career, 24 of them with Detroit.

5. Bill Walsh I. In 1979, the San Francisco 49ers should have had the first pick in the draft but had traded it to Buffalo (more on that later).Walsh, in his rookie year running the team, told a "sleeper'' quarterback from Morehead State named Phil Simms that he would take him with the first pick of the second round. "I don't think so,'' Simms replied. "A bunch of teams have told me they'll take me in the first." Simms went seventh overall to the Giants -- after Jack Thompson, the "Throwin' Samoan,'' who was taken by the Bengals at No. 3 and before Steve Fuller, who went 22nd to the Chiefs. At 82, the 49ers were debating a quarterback. Walsh wanted Steve Dils, who had played for him at Stanford; personnel director Tony Razzano finally convinced him to go for a kid named Joe Montana, who had split the starting job at Notre Dame with Rusty Lisch. Walsh listened. History says he listened correctly.


7. Bill Walsh III. The year after he got Rice, Walsh traded down instead of up. His first pick was No. 39 in the second round, defensive end Larry Roberts. Then he took fullback Tom Rathman (third); cornerback Tim McKyer (third); wide receiver John Taylor (third); linebacker/defensive end Charles Haley (fourth); offensive tackle Steve Wallace (fourth); defensive tackle Kevin Fagan (fourth) and cornerback Don Griffin (sixth). All eight started in the 1989 Super Bowl win over Cincinnati -- Taylor caught the winning TD pass from Montana -- and were the heart of a team that won after the 1988 and 1989 seasons. Haley, a Hall of Fame finalist this year, is the only player with five Super Bowl rings: two with the 49ers and three with Dallas.

8. 1983. There were 28 players taken in the first round. Six are in the Hall of Fame, including three of the six first-round quarterbacks: John Elway, Jim Kelly and Dan Marino, who went 27th to Miami because of a subpar senior season. The others: Eric Dickerson, chosen second after Elway, who was taken by the Colts and traded to the Broncos because he said he wouldn't play in Indy; guard Bruce Matthews, ninth overall, and cornerback Darrell Green, 28th and last to Washington. Matthews played 19 years and Green played 20.

9. More 1983. Roger Craig and Richard Dent were Hall of Fame finalists this year. Craig was chosen 49th overall, in the second round, by the 49ers (does anyone wonder why they won five Super Bowls between 1981 and 1994?) Dent went in the eighth round, 203rd, to Chicago, which got seven starters for the 1985 champions from this draft. The Giants got seven starters for the 1986 Super Bowl winner. In addition to Elway, Denver also got a 12th-round pick in Karl Mecklenburg, the leader of a defense that won AFC titles in 1986, 1987 and 1989. Plus a backup QB named Gary Kubiak, who early in his career as Elway's backup was labeled a future NFL coach. One reason that draft was so deep was that it contained five college classes because its seniors who were the first group redshirted by colleges.

Quarterbacks

10. The first quarterback to go No. 1 overall was Angelo Bertelli of Notre Dame, taken in 1944 by the Boston Yanks.

11. The worst quarterback to go No. 1 overall was Terry Baker, converted to running back by the Rams after winning the Heisman Trophy at Oregon State in 1963. In three seasons, he rushed for 210 yards and passed for 154.

12. The best quarterback to go No. 1 overall is Peyton Manning, taken by the Colts in 1998, eight years after they'd used the No. 1 overall pick on Jeff George, who could be the worst QB to go No. 1 if Couch isn't.

13. The worst QB to go No. 2 overall and probably the worst pick ever was Ryan Leaf, taken by San Diego right after Manning in 1998.

14. In 1955, Pittsburgh used its ninth round pick on John Unitas, who had been first-team all scholastic in Pittsburgh in 1950. Second-team all scholastic in 1950 was Dan Rooney, son of the Steelers' owner. Unitas was no better than fourth string in camp with the Steelers and was cut -- Ted Marchibroda and Jim Finks, later longtime coaches and executives were among those kept. Unitas played sandlot football for the Bloomfield Rams and in 1956 went to a Baltimore Colts' tryout. When starter George Shaw (Wally Pipp) broke a leg in the season's fourth game, Unitas became the starter. A year later, he was the NFL's MVP.

15. Jack Kemp was a 17th round pick of Detroit in 1957, was cut and picked up by Pittsburgh. He sat on the bench for the 1958 Giants of the championship game against Unitas and the Colts _ "the Greatest Game Ever Played'' _ and earned an Eastern Conferernce title share because Frank Gifford convinced his teammates to vote him one. He went on to pay ten seasons in the AFL/NFL, become a Congressman, vice presidential candidate and Cabinet member.

16. Len Dawson was chosen by Pittsburgh in 1957 as the fourth overall pick in the draft. He threw 45 passes in five seasons with the Steelers and Browns before moving to the AFL, where he threw 3,696 passes for the Chiefs, led them to a Super Bowl win in 1970 and ended up in the Hall of Fame.

17. Pittsburgh made big mistakes with Unitas, Kemp and Dawson. From 1955 until 1961, when they could have had one of those QBs, they instead had Marchibroda, Finks, Jack Scarbath, Earl Morrall, an aged Bobby Layne, Rudy Bukich and Ed Brown. Layne, a Hall of Famer, was way beyond his best years and Morrall's best years were in the future with the Lions, Giants, Colts and Dolphins, who he steered to their 1972 unbeaten season when Bob Griese was hurt. The Steelers were 39-44-3 during those seasons.

18. Tom Brady was the 199th pick in the 2000 draft. Bart Starr was a 17th round pick in 1956, the year Morrall was taken in the first round by the 49ers. Between them, they won eight titles.

19. Fred Wyant and John Roach were the quarterbacks taken between Morrall and Starr in '56, both in the third round. Wyant, who played at West Virginia, ended up in the CFL and wore No. 11, the same number he wore for 27 years as an NFL official, 19 of those as a referee.

20. (or should this be No. 4?) In 1991, Seattle coach Chuck Knox wanted to take "the kid from Mississippi'' with the 16th overall pick but owner Ken Behring jumped in and noted that Dan McGwire (Mark's brother) was 6-8 and he wanted him. At 24 overall, Al Davis made another quirky QB pick, Todd Marinovich, son of former Raider Mark. The kid from Mississippi (Southern Mississippi actually) was, of course Brett Favre and Ron Wolf, personnel director of the Jets, coveted him. But Favre went to Atlanta with the 33rd pick, one before New York, which then took Browning Nagle.

Late that season, Wolf became the general manager of the Packers. During a game in Atlanta, Wolf went to the field before the game, returned to his box, and told team president Bob Harlan, "we've got our quarterback.'' During the offseason, they obtained Favre for a first-round pick, in part because Jerry Glanville, the Falcons' coach, was fed up with Brett's partying. In the fourth game of the 1992 season, Favre became the Packers' starter and at age 40 has 285 starts in a row, 93 more than his closest pursuer, Peyton Manning.

Family Business

21. First family of quarterbacks is the Mannings: Archie, No. 2 in 1971; Peyton, No. 1, 1998; Eli, No. 1, 2004.

22. First family overall: Clay Matthews, a defensive end, played four seasons with San Francisco after being picked by the Rams in the 25th round in 1949 and playing four years for the 49ers. His sons and grandson were all first-rounders.

Clay Matthews the son was the 12th overall pick by Cleveland in 1978 and played 19 years as a linebacker. Bruce was the ninth overall pick by Houston in 1983, played 19 years as an offensive lineman and was elected to the Hall of fame in his first year eligible. The third Clay -- son of the second Clay -- was the 26th overall pick by Green Bay and made the Pro Bowl as a linebacker in his second season.

23. Bob Griese was the fourth overall pick of the 1967 draft. He quarterbacked the unbeaten 1972 Dolphins (although the aforementioned Earl Morrall filled in when he was injured for eight games). He played in three Super Bowls, winning two, and is in the Hall of Fame. Son Brian was a third-round pick of Denver in 1998, groomed as John Elway's successor. He spent 11 seasons with the Broncos, Bucs and Bears with 83 starts. Then he followed dad into the broadcast booth

24. Tiki Barber was a second-round pick of the New York Giants in 1997 and twin brother Ronde a third round pick of the Bucs. They may not be Hall of Famers but they're in the discussion -- Tiki retired after the 2006 season with 10,449 yards rushing and 586 receptions; Ronde, still playing, has 37 interceptions and seven touchdowns.

25. Sam "Bam'' Cunningham, the 11th pick of the 1973 draft by New England, was a fullback who blocked AND ran. He retired after the 1982 season with 5,453 yards rushing and 210 catches. His brother Randall, a second-round pick of Philadelphia in 1985, was a quarterback who passed AND ran. He was 21 yards short of throwing for 30,000 yards and ran for 4,298, about 80 percent of his brother's rushing yardage.

(To Be Continued)