From Underwhelming to Unforgettable: The 27th Draft Picks

Think the 27th pick is just a late round afterthought in the NFL draft?

Think again.

From the reliable offensive lineman who played forever to an explosive running backs with hall of Fame peaks, this slot is a total wild card.

Today we're counting down the top five players taken at number 27, including a Patriots dynasty anchor, a Texas legend and a man who considered the greatest pure passer ever to group of football.

He is your team picking 27th this year.

Let's find out if they're about to land a bust or a gold jacket.

Guest historian Ed Cleese joins us once

again on Pigskin Dispatch as we enter

the pig pen and get ready for

the NFL draft by looking at some

great National Football League history.

Hey Darren, how are you today?

I'm doing super Ed and I think we got some, some interesting folks to talk about that were drafted in a number 27 position.

So what, what are your takes on this?

Well, we'll start with the theme that we've been talking about at the top from a lot of these picks and that is recently the number 27 pick is pretty underwhelming.

You know, I went back again kind of.

No home runs or anything like that.

The top five is also going to be a little underwhelming.

I thought this one was.

I found a lot of okay players.

There wasn't many busts or anybody that really stood out.

You know, there were some quality offensive linemen that weren't spectacular.

Now those guys, they really didn't combine from any pro Bowls or anything, but they had very long careers, were in the league a long time and we're kind of like rock solid veterans.

We had three years in a row, 87, 88 and 89 that wide receivers were taken 27th overall and all three were underwhelming.

Ricky Natiel for the Broncos, Wendell Davis for the Bears and Sean Collins for the Falcons.

And I do not even remember Sean Collins in 19.

I don't even know.

I didn't know that name at all.

So the first two I did, you know, I remember and Tyler, but yeah, I don't recognize the third one either.

Yeah, very kind of Again, sort of like underwhelming, like, okay, fine, you know, they hung around for a little bit.

And then also not just receivers, but I, I, there was a theme with this pick.

There were some running backs that made a mark very briefly, very briefly.

So they didn't, none of these guys made the top five because they just didn't do it long enough.

Right.

Just for like a two or three year period.

And then it kind of faded away.

He was one of the more, you know, popular, memorable college players.

Obviously one of the Heisman at USC.

He had one season around 800 yards, and then he had never had another one more than 500.

He had off the field issues.

When he was drafted, he even came out and said that he had a big cocaine problem.

It really hampered his career.

He was drafted by the Browns.

Sort of the Cleveland story, I guess that'll drive anybody to drugs.

Yeah.

And then in the mid-80s, he was given like a new life by his college coach.

John Robinson was coaching the Rams.

He brought White in.

I'm sorry, the comeback player of the year.

And then he faded away again.

So he had a, you know, kind of that weird, you know, one year resurgence, but he also did not make the top five.

He was probably my number one cut.

Yeah, it's kind of a, an interesting draft because we've been talking the last couple, you know, we've had two, three hall of Famers.

That's one of the barometers that we can measure these drafts by.

Only one hall of Famer in this draft select, I'm sorry, at this draft position at number 27, which I'm sure you're going to talk about here in a little bit.

So there will be two?

Yeah, there probably will be two, but right.

As of right now, recording only one.

So I guess that sort of leads us into.

Who do you have as your top five picks?

Well, number five.

You know, it's very strange for me to put him here because, you know, the theme of the running backs and the brief bursts.

Well, this is a running back with A brief burst, but the burst was so explosive that I had to include him.

He also caught 74 passes over those two seasons.

And that was sort of it.

Like there was.

He had a bunch of injuries after that.

And he was a very odd, strange guy off the field.

There were some weird things that happened there, but I felt that his two year run was so you couldn't make an argument that for two years he was the best player in the NFL.

And so when you reach that peak, even if it's a short peak, to me that's worthy of inclusion, especially when the overall list wasn't all that strong.

Yeah, can't say say enough about, you know, this guy.

He did have those couple of real peak years and you know, then had some years that you sort of forgot about him like, sort of like you're saying.

But yeah, I think it's a solid pick at number five and then going

on to number four.

Again, this is not an overwhelming one because I didn't think the list was all that overwhelming.

And that coincided with three Super Bowls, I believe.

Yeah, they won three Super Bowls over that time.

He was second in Defensive Rookie of the Year.

He did make three All Pro first or second teams.

He had 35 interceptions and he played in 24 playoff games.

So, you know, another reason I look at him is, you know, during that, that was during, you know, we had the, the three eras of Patriots football, the early super bowl champions, the drought teams that were good but didn't win it, and then the ones that won the three.

And McCourty was a big part of that last group that won the three.

He was one of the best defensive players, maybe consistently their best defensive player in that era of Patriots football.

And you know, that's good enough for me.

Yeah, I always thought it was kind of an interesting.

I think they had that one or two seasons where the Patriots picked up his brother too, and they were both in the defensive backfield.

I thought that was kind of a cool, cool family reunion there.

And now we see him on TV a lot.

They're both really good in the booth.

Yeah, definitely, definitely great ballplayers and know their football.

Yep, yep.

So moving on to number three.

This one surprised me a little bit.

The numbers were a little bit better.

I certainly remembered the player but the numbers were a little bit better than I remembered.

That would be Roddy white.

He was an 11 year steady performer.

He had a, not to the extreme of like Larry Johnson, but he had a mid career burst.

And he had back to back 100 plus catch seasons which is pretty rare in the history of the NFL.

And he had double digit touchdowns in each of those years too.

So he was making some, some big plays in the second to last year.

He also caught 80 passes so he was good throughout.

He only played in five playoff games.

You know they weren't.

The Falcons were sort of a middling team but they did have some very good offenses.

With Matt Ryan, you know he overlapped with Julio Jones there a little bit.

He was on the super bowl team that lost to the Patriots in the comeback game but he wasn't a big part of the team.

That was, I think it was his final game so.

But he was a lifetime Falcon.

Probably one of the better Falcons ever and he's number three on my list.

I think that's another solid pick.

I can remember him.

That was big news when they got Julio Jones to pair with him because he was, I think he was actually better before Julio Jones came on the scene.

And you would think that would almost, you know Julio Jones would take some of the, the attention away from Roddy White but sort of fading in the background a little bit maybe.

Maybe Matty Ice decided not to throw his way anymore.

I don't know.

He became a number two for sure.

Yeah.

All right, so who do you have above Roddy White?

Well, speaking of number two, I've got the other guy that I think our number one guys clearly in the hall of Fame.

Our number.

This guy I think is going well.

I think he had his career is interesting.

He caught 104 or more passes four out of six years.

That's amazing.

And he did it all without a great offense, without a great quarterback.

You know, those years, really his whole career, honestly, certainly through the prime of his career with the Texans and the Cardinals.

Never great quarterbacks, never great teams, never great offenses and incredible production.

Some of the better hands we've ever seen, spectacular catches.

And then he had a drop off where he's become a little bit more of an average receiver, but he's still playing.

He has 1,006 catches and to me, that's a Hall of Fame, absolutely lock.

No question about it.

Yeah, it's D hop, you know, especially with the Texans was just unbelievable.

He was probably the premier wide receiver in the league for a few years of his career down in Houston and yeah, still, still a very solid player.

We, you know, we saw him playing quite a bit this year and had another decent year, you know, as a number two.

Really, you know, it's hard to think of him as a number two, but that's sort of where his career, his career path has taken him.

So, yeah, I definitely agree with him being in your second slot.

So his bust will be in Canton next to our number one guy.

You know, it's.

He, I'd say he's mildly polarizing when it comes to comparing to the other hall of Fame quarterbacks.

There's no debate whether he should be in the hall of Fame or not.

You'd be an idiot to argue that.

But there maybe is a debate amongst the hall of Fame quarterbacks where he might land.

And the big thing against him was always, you know, made the super bowl his second year and then never got back.

You know, that's, that's probably the number one mark against him.

Had some playoff disappointments, had some.

Had some games where he didn't play particularly well in the playoffs as well.

But really, for me, that was always more a function of a team that was.

Had poor defenses, that never quite.

The teams in the Marino era never rose to his level.

As far as I was concerned, there weren't a lot of other.

He really didn't play with any other great players.

He really didn't.

Yeah.

And that's.

As a Steelers fan, I think that might Be one of the number one regrets here.

You had this kid that grew up in Pittsburgh, played a Central Catholic high school, played at Pittsburgh, you know, had pretty good careers in both of those places.

And the Steelers ended up taking Gabe Rivera at number one 21, which would have really helped them.

You know, great nose tackle.

He had gotten a bad car accident and was never really able to play for the Steelers.

But that was always sort of the regret that throughout Marino's career, you know, why didn't they take Marino?

And they had.

There was talk where they were going to trade for him in the 90s.

You know, back in the.

When Cower first took over, they were talking about trading, but him and Johnny Unitis letting Johnny Unites go are probably two of the biggest mistakes that the organization has made that I think that they'll admit.

Sure.

Sliding doors, you just never know.

Yeah, that's for sure.

That's for sure.

Yeah.

I think he's definitely a no brainer on there.

Some people that you didn't talk about and I'm surprised, didn't even make your honorable mention list.

Mark Bruner was drafted a real solid tight end for the Steelers.

He was sort of the Heath Miller before Heath Miller, you know, great, great blocking back.

Caught a few passes here and there, but really helped with that power run game.

Sort of the guy that took over for Fran Tarkington after all those great seasons that he and I guess Joe Cap had a few in between there when Tarkenton went to the Giants.

But what a great career Kramer had to coming off the bench or when he started after Tarkinden's career.

So just want to make sure we mention those guys.

Got it.

Yeah.

So I guess that takes us to some stats here.

Our top position sort of flip flops.

We've been talking a lot about defensive players being the top position at the other.

The other slots we talked about.

This time the running back is king at that slot.

We've had 10 of those taken.

So one one out of every nine picks has been a running back at the 27 position.

That one hall of Famer we talked about earlier is Marino and we have our draft state stat of the day.

I don't know if you're ready for this.

I'm ready.

I see you're sitting down, so that's all right.

This one we've been talking a little bit about Oklahoma.

You have your hat on the last couple days.

Well, we're going to talk about my favorite college team.

That's Notre Dame, holds a remarkable streak of having at least one player drafted for 80 consecutive years, including the supplemental drafts.

Okay.

That is only outshined by two other schools.

So 88 straight drafts for those two schools.

Having somebody drafted.

And you think about that, you know, you have some World War II drafts going on in between.

There were not a whole lot of guys were taken.

And USC and Michigan both had folks going to the NFL.

That's very impressive.

Yeah.

So I think that wraps us up for day 27 in our 27th slot at the NFL draft.

And we'll talk to you again tomorrow and continue, continue our trek towards that National Football League draft.

See you tomorrow, Darren.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website, pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the

good people of the game as well

as our own football competition, Strip cleat marks comics.

Pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and don't forget the Pigskin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike

and Gene Monroe as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesteryear

is your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

Join us back tomorrow for more of your football history.

We invite you to check out our website pigskindispatch.com not only to see the daily football history, but to experience positive football with our many articles on the

good people of the game as well

as our own football comic strip, kleet marks comics.

Pigskindispatch.com is also on social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and don't forget the Big Skin Dispatch YouTube channel to get all of your positive football news and history.

Special thanks to the talents of Mike

and Gene Monroe as well as Jason Neff for letting us use their music during our podcast.

This podcast is part of the Sports History Network, your headquarters for the yesterday

of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.