The 32nd Pick: Examining Its Impact on Football History

With the 32nd pick of the NFL Draft the world champions have selected.

You're probably sick and tired of hearing the word draft as we approach the NFL draft coming up on April 23rd for the first round. And I promise you we're not going to do mock drafts and talk about this upcoming draft.

Ed, welcome back to the pig pen.

Hey, Darin, I am pumped for this.

Yeah, this is going to be a lot of fun.

This is a great idea you had of going 32 straight days leading up to the draft and talking a lot of football history and a lot of great players that were picked in those picks.

Any opportunity to totally nerd out, I will take it.

Yeah, I most definitely. And I think the audience will too. And I think maybe we'll kick that off with some nerding out right now about pick 32.

Right. And obviously, you know, we didn't. We were still at 28 teams as recently as 95.

Right?

Yeah. So 94 was the last year that we had 28 teams.

So up until that point, the first, you know, that was the 32nd pick was like the fourth pick in the second round. So. Yes, during, during some of my research too. Not all of these are first rounders.

Yeah, that's, that's definitely a pick. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your feel of pick 32. Sure.

So when I was looking through it, I didn't. I felt pick 32 had a lot of guys, names you'll know, but not a ton of major, major impact players. I was a little surprised about that.

It's a lot of guys like Teddy Bridgewater, Ziggy Hood, a guy that you'll remember for the Steelers, defensive lineman Ben Watson tied in for the Patriots and like Jerome Python, receiver. Guys that had solid careers but weren't really big earth movers, you know.

And when I saw that, I was like, wait, that's in the wheelhouse of when I was watching football. I do not remember this guy at all. And when I looked it up, this, I think you'd have to call this a bust.

He threw two passes in the NFL for the Chiefs. One was an interception.

So he played part of one game through two passes, five yards, a five yard completion and an interception and then was basically out of the league. So that was the one real bust that I could find on the list, if you could call it that, you know, at that point that was a second round pick.

Very short career, didn't do very well. Was a bit saddled with the Spurrier era, the brief Spurrier era there in Washington.

So those are kind of the two, the two that kind of stood out as maybe not working out. And then it was a whole bunch of guys that were just kind of like, eh, they're fine. Yeah.

So they were just only three years into the NFL after being in the AFC and Bob St. Clair was drafted. And you also had some, some stars that you may remember from the original Monday Night Football or early Monday Night Football.

In honor of Don Meredith, I will not sing like he used to do in the Monday Night Football booth. I will spare everybody that. But.

So I missed one.

Yeah, I'm going to. You missed. You might have missed one, but we'll get. We'll get to him if we go backwards.

Oh, yeah. You know what? Now I do see him. Okay.

He played 17 seasons in the NFL, the majority of them with the Colts. He wound up in six Pro Bowls.

But what was kind of interesting about that was he made a bunch of Pro Bowls very early in his career with the Baltimore Colts and then the Indianapolis Colts, and then he made two Pro Bowls in his last two years with the Dallas Cowboys, where he ended his career his 16th and 17th year in the league. So that's. That really speaks to his longevity and durability. He actually did not. He was. He got a Super bowl ring.

He was on the 95 Cowboys that won it, but he was injured in the postseason and didn't play at all. So he was on the team but didn't make it. So I had him at number five. And there was a little bit of. A little bit unclear, but there was some debate.

He is considered to be the first starting. The first African American starting center in the NFL. Not necessarily.

Maybe the first one to, you know, have a snap, but the first one to be named a starter.

Wow. Okay, that's. That's big news.

Yeah, so. So that was kind of interesting as well. So I have him at number five.

Okay, so who do you have a number four?

What I liked is, you know, he got off to a little bit of a slow start in his career.

This is back when rookies Were, you know, they came on a little bit more slowly and he had four straight thousand yard seasons for the Rams in the late 80s.

This is right, this is right after the Gibbs era when the Redskins were not very good. They were rebuilding and he was a major bright spot on those teams.

He was very good and he probably could have put up even bigger numbers if he had better quarterbacks with them. But an excellent career and was very good as an older player as well.

All right, so who do you have in the third spot?

Now this is weird because it's a little harder when we get to the guys that were drafted somewhat recently if their careers were kind of in like a middle of their career. So I'm kind of going off of who he is and projecting maybe a little bit who he will be. He could go up on this list. Maybe he could go even go down.

But number three is Lamar Jackson. I've got him at number three. We don't really need to get too into it. I don't need to give you many stats. We know he was a league mvp.

We know how good he is.

We also know that his career is maybe a little bit of a crossroads right now in terms of like, you know, what's the ceiling of this career going to be? Without question, he's going to go down as one of the top five, number 30, 30 second picks of all time though.

Okay. Yeah, I mean he's definitely a good pick. Definitely have some, some strong quarterback play there with Lamar Jackson. So who do you have above him?

Number two. This is tough. I didn't know whether I kind of flip flopped between him and Jackson, but I have Logan Mankins at number two.

And really Pro Bowls especially now are, you know, it's a, it's, it's a tough marker. It doesn't mean much anymore. It used to mean a lot more.

But what has always mattered and what's still very much mattered and really set you apart is that first team all Pro and he did that twice, which is a really big deal. Basically you're saying at that point you were the best in the league at your. Or at least your conference at your position. That's a really big deal.

He is definitely in the hall of Fame debate. He has not made it yet. He's been on the ballot. He's somebody that people consider. I think. I don't know if he'll get there or not.

1 00.

And he missed. Missed the Buccaneers Super Bowl.

What?

And he would have missed the Buccaneers.

He missed the Buccaneers super bowl. So. Poor guy never got a ring despite playing for the Patriots in the middle of their run for almost 10 years. That's really wild.

Wow.

Yeah, that worked out that way. But yeah, a great player and probably at least a borderline hall of Famer.

Yeah, definitely a great pick there. I was wondering if he was going to show up on your list. But yeah, great pick.

And the number one is this was easy. This is just not even. We.

We, you and I could sit here and debate, you know, where he falls on the top 15 list, top 10 list, whatever you want. That's fine. But there's no debate that he is the best 32nd pick in the history of the NFL Draft by the Chargers.

Of course, had the shoulder injury was going to go to the Dolphins. The Dolphins got scared of the medical report. And so he wound up in New Orleans. The rest is history. Obviously.

There are so many words to describe his career and how brilliant he was and all the records he set. And I probably don't need to do that here. If you're watching, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably know about Drew Brees already.

Yeah, I think so. That's a pretty big name there to. To not to know about. Seller. That's a pretty good part. Top five number 32 picks.

I don't think I could argue with any one of those or argue that anybody should be above them. So I think that's. Great job by you. Great job. All right, so I want to give a draft stat of the day, which we're going to do over the next 32 days. And.

for going that far back? I would say Notre Dame.

No. They are in the top five. Ohio State University has 91 draft picks in the first round.

If we were in a more modern era, I would have guessed that, but I. I was a little. A little surprised that it was they

went that far back. But back. This just shows you they're five ahead of USC, who has 85, or, I'm sorry, six ahead. University of Alabama has 81 and Notre Dame 71.

Those are your. Your top schools with draft picks in the first round, which they're only.

Their. Ohio State's only going to keep adding to that tally.

Yeah, that's for sure. It'll probably add a few more this year, I'm sure. Yep, Yep. Yeah. Okay.

And the most popular college at pick number 32, since we're talking about that, was the USC Trojans. They had four picks in those 90 years that were selected at pick 32.

That is some. That's some deep research.

I like that.

I like that a lot. I like that. Good job. Yeah.

So I think that that wraps up our show for today. Shows you pick 32. You can mark that X in your calendar and you'll have 31 days when we tune back in.

And we're going to Talk about pick 31 tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel. Talk to you tomorrow, Ed.

See you, 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 comic strip, clete 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 Munro, 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

of your favorite sport.

You can learn more@sportshistorynetwork.com.