Some of the NFL Draft’s best moments don’t become Best Moments until much later, after it’s established how good/bad the players are and how well/poorly teams evaluated them. That’s what this post is about: those instances when two guys at the same position are picked back to back, and it turns out there’s a gigantic gap between them. Basically, the first guy has a forgettable career (if he has one at all), and the second goes on to the Hall of Fame (or close to it).
Here are a dozen examples I dug up, just for the sake of conversation. Call them . . .
THE ALL-TIME WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA TEAM
| Year | Team | Drafted (Pick) | Could Have Had,Team (Pick) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Lions | WR Charles Rogers (2) | WR Andre Johnson, Texans (3) |
| 1999 | Browns | QB Tim Couch (1) | QB Donovan McNabb, Eagles (2) |
| 1985 | Vikings | WR Buster Rhymes (85) | WR Andre Reed*, Bills (86) |
| 1974 | Chargers | WR Harrison Davis (81) | WR John Stallworth*, Steelers (82) |
| 1967 | 49ers | QB Steve Spurrier (3) | QB Bob Griese*, Dolphins (4) |
| 1967 | Chargers | DT Ron Billingsley (14) | DT Alan Page*, Vikings (15) |
| 1967 | Bills | OT George Gaiser (181) | OT Rayfield Wright*, Cowboys (182) |
| 1961 | Vikings | OG Ken Peterson (183) | OG Billy Shaw*, Cowboys (184) |
| 1958 | Lions | RB Ralph Pfeifer (83) | RB Bobby Mitchell*, Browns (84) |
| 1956 | Packers | RB Jack Losch (8) | RB Lenny Moore*, Colts (9) |
| 1945 | Yanks | E Ben Jones (102) | E Tom Fears*, Rams (103) |
| 1936 | Lions | B Chuck Cheshire (17) | B Tuffy Leemans*, Giants (18) |
*Hall of Fame
(Note: Shaw signed with the Bills of the rival AFL.)
The Vikes drafted this guy a spot ahead of Andre Reed.
Talk about screwing the pooch. After deciding to draft a particular player at a particular position, the teams on the left took The Wrong Guy — a mistake which became infinitely worse when the next club on the clock took The Right Guy. You can click on the names to look at their stats . . . and see how huge a gap there was in each case. It ain’t pretty. Cheshire, Jones and Pfeifer never played in the league, and Rogers, for one, was a drug-plagued disaster (36 catches and 4 touchdowns, compared to Reed’s 1,012 and 64 — and counting).
Would the first decade of the expansion Browns have been a little less miserable if they’d opted for McNabb over Couch? You’d think so. You’ve also gotta believe the ’70s (pre-Coryell) Chargers would have won a lot more games if they’d had Stallworth catching passes and Page chasing down quarterbacks — or am I underestimating how lousy the Bolts were in those days?
This kind of puts it all in perspective, though: Spurrier wound up quarterbacking the only 0-14 team in NFL history (the ’76 Bucs), and Griese wound up quarterbacking the only 17-0 team (the ’72 Dolphins).
Source: pro-football-reference.com
