Category: Draft History

The history of Heisman Trophy winners in the NFL Draft

The history of Heisman Trophy winners in the NFL Draft and where 2024 winner Travis Hunter could get selected

With the announcement that Colorado wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter is the winner of the 2024 Heisman Trophy, it’s time to look at how Heisman winners have fared in the NFL Draft over the years.

The first Heisman was awarded in 1935, won by Jay Berwanger from the University of Chicago. Berwanger subsequently became the first Heisman winner to become the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL selection process, heading to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Including Berwanger up through last year’s Heisman winner and No. 1 overall pick, Caleb Williams, 25 players have been the top draft pick after winning the Heisman. That includes five of the last six, dating back to Baker Mayfield in the 2018 draft. Devonta Smith, the 2020 Heisman winner, went 10th overall in the 2021 NFL Draft.

The 25 winners taken No. 1 include Hall of Famers like Paul Hornung, Earl Campbell and O.J. Simpson but also some largely forgotten players like Frank Sinkwich, Angelo Bertelli and Terry Baker.

Winning the Heisman recently has been a very strong guarantee of becoming a first-round pick, with 17 of the last 19 meeting that threshold. The exceptions are Derrick Henry (2nd round 2016) and Troy Smith (5th round 2007).

Smith wasn’t the latest selection in a draft, however. Far from it, in fact; 1990 winner Ty Detmer wasn’t picked until the ninth round of the 1992 NFL Draft. The winner in ’92 was Geno Torretta, a seventh-rounder in 1993. Going back to before the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, six Heisman winners weren’t selected until at least the 10th round. That group includes Hall of Famer Roger Staubach, though the 1963 Heisman winner deserves an asterisk because he was destined for active duty in the Navy over immediately playing in the NFL.

Three Heisman winners have gone undrafted: Jason White (2003), Charlie Ward (1993) and Pete Dawkins (1958). Ward was a first-round pick in the NBA and played professional basketball for 11 years, however.

In all, 62 Heisman winners have been first-round picks out of 88 winners, with Archie Griffin being the only player to win two Heismans. The Lions have selected the most Heisman winners, with 10. That includes four of the first 12 winners and extends through tabbing winners Barry Sanders and Andre Ware in back-to-back years in 1988 and 1989. The Rams are next in picking eight winners. The New Orleans Saints earn a special mention for selecting four between 1996 winner Danny Wuerffel and 2009 winner Mark Ingram.

Where will Hunter wind up in the 2025 NFL Draft? It’s still to early to know, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see him gracing the draft stage in April in the first handful of picks. There’s even a chance Hunter could add to the list of No. 1 overall picks who captured college football’s most prestigious honor.

 

The 2022 NFL Draft is cemented as one of the worst quarterback classes in history

The ’22 draft class at quarterback has proven to be one of the worst ever

Looking back on the 2022 NFL Draft, the narrative going in was the mixed bag of a quarterback class. It was headlined by Pittsburgh Panther Kenny Pickett, Cincinnati’s leader in Desmond Ridder and the explosive Liberty quarterback Malik Willis. Fast forward to just two drafts later, and none of the top quarterbacks from that class find themselves in a starting role, and most of them find themselves hanging on a thread for their NFL career.

In just the past week, three of the quarterbacks from that class who opened the last season as their team’s starter found themselves shipped off to another team. Sam Howell, Kenny Pickett, and Desmond Ridder were all moved off in favor of a veteran or a future rookie draft pick.

The only reason this class will likely not be considered a total bust is, ironically enough, the final pick in the entire draft with former Iowa State quarterback Brock Purdy, who is coming off a Super Bowl appearance. It goes to show that the quarterback draft process can, at times, be a bit of a crap shoot. With top projected talents falling out of the first round, others quickly failing at the next level, and the ones no one ever expected becoming heroes of their franchise.

Look: All 49 of Nick Saban’s first-round draft picks over the years

A look at all the NFL draft first-round picks over the years who ended their college careers being coached by Nick Saban

Legendary head coach Nick Saban announced his retirement this week. The longtime Alabama coach had tremendous success at the college level. He also helped produce a plethora of NFL prospects over the years at his coaching stops.

Saban coached at Alabama from 2008 to 2023, and most of the first-rounders come from that era. There were 43 Saban-coached players selected in the first round of the NFL draft between the 2009 and 2023 editions. He was also responsible for the first-round picks selected from LSU between the 2001 and 2005 drafts, as well as Michigan State from 1996 to 2000.

Here are all 49 players selected in the first round who finished their college careers being coached by Nick Saban at his various stops, from the most recent to the very first.

The 5 best picks in NFL supplemental draft history

Ranking the best players ever selected in the NFL Supplemental Draft

The NFL will hold its supplemental draft on Tuesday. It will be the first time since 2019 the event, which allows players whose draft eligibility has changed since the regular draft period to be selected, will take place.

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There have been over 40 players selected in the supplemental draft over the years, dating back to the first in 1977. Here are the five best players who came out of the supplemental draft ranks.

My 7 biggest draft misses as an evaluator and the lessons learned from them

Draft Wire’s Jeff Risdon looks back at the 7 biggest misses in his draft evaluations over the last 20 years and what he learned from them

Recently I reflected upon the top-graded players at each position in my draft evaluations since 2004. That was a fun exercise.

This trip down memory lane is not so pleasant. But it’s an important one nonetheless.

Who were my biggest misses in the draft evaluation process?

Most of these are players who I expected to be very good in the NFL but didn’t pan out. There are a couple of notable prospects where I grossly underestimated their impact at the next level, too.

The point here is to learn from the misses. Why were my evaluations off? What did I think I saw that made me miss? If you’re not trying to get better and learn from your mistakes as an evaluator, you’re destined to keep missing.

The top-graded draft prospects at each position since 2004

Draft Wire’s Jeff Risdon reveals his top-graded draft prospects at each position since 2004

On a recent radio appearance, I was asked an intriguing question.

“Who was the best prospect you’ve ever graded?”

I’ve been evaluating prospects and covering the NFL draft professionally since 2004, which meant the 2023 draft was my 20th. The question and the timeframe was a nice catalyst to go back and examine some of the older evaluations.

To answer the question directly, my highest-graded player ever was Wisconsin OT Joe Thomas in 2007. The grading scales and systems I use have changed over the years, but Thomas topped any iteration.

Here are the top-graded players from my evaluations at each position since the 2004 NFL draft.

Matt Ryan’s move to the CBS booth leaves just 3 active players from the 2008 NFL draft

Matt Ryan’s move to the broadcast booth leaves just 3 active players from the 2008 draft still in the NFL

Matt Ryan has traded in his cleats for a microphone. The former MVP and longtime quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons will be calling games on CBS this fall instead of playing in those broadcasts. Ryan denies he’s retired, but it’s difficult to envision him returning from the broadcast booth after the underwhelming 2022 season he had with the Colts.

With Ryan’s departure, there is almost nobody left from the 2008 NFL draft still active in the league.

Ryan was the No. 3 overall pick in that draft. He was the only top-15 overall pick in that draft class who had played a regular-season snap after the 2018 season. Ryan was one of just eight players from the 2008 draft class who played in 2022. The list:

No. 3 – Matt Ryan

18 – Joe Flacco

26 – Duane Brown

49 – DeSean Jackson

50 – Calais Campbell

57 – Chad Henne

153 – Matthew Slater

160 – Josh Johnson

Ryan and Henne both officially retired this offseason. Flacco is an unsigned free agent, as is Johnson. Jackson is “strongly considering” retirement after being released by the Baltimore Ravens, too.

That leaves three actively rostered players from the draft class: Brown, Campbell and Slater. Brown is penciled in as the starting left tackle for the Jets. Campbell recently signed with Ryan’s old team in Atlanta to play another year of defensive end.

Slater deserves special mention for embarking on his 16th season with the New England Patriots, who drafted him out of UCLA as a wide receiver despite the fact he never caught a pass in college. Slater has been one of the NFL’s preeminent special teams players for the bulk of his career, earning 10 Pro Bowl berths.

5th round QB Clayton Tune has some historical Cardinals draft ties

5th-round QB Clayton Tune isn’t the first member of his family to be drafted by the Cardinals organization

It only made sense that the Arizona Cardinals selected Houston quarterback Clayton Tune in the fifth round of the 2023 NFL draft. Tune has a great historical draft tie to the Cardinals organization.

As related by the Cardinals media relations, Tune is the great-great nephew of Jim Lawrence. As in, the same Jim Lawrence who was the first-ever draft pick by the Cardinals franchise back in 1936.

Lawrence was a running back out of TCU when the then-Chicago Cardinals drafted him fifth overall in the inaugural NFL draft some 87 years ago. Lawrence played four seasons for the Cardinals, leading the team in rushing in 1938.

Tune gets a chance to further the family legacy in Arizona.

NFL draft: Is trading away your top picks the best team-building strategy?

It worked for the Los Angeles Rams, but other NFL teams that want to copy their strategy should be aware of the pitfalls

During their Super Bowl victory parade back in February, Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead was famously seen wearing a shirt said colorfully illustrated his strategy for dealing early draft picks for established stars.

This ideology clearly turned out well for Snead and the Rams, who parlayed some blockbuster deals into star players who had a huge impact on winning a ring.

But how much of an impact did those moves actually have? Have other teams used a similar strategy, and to what degree of success? Was the Rams’ title run just as much a result of other moves that flew under the radar by comparison?

If you truly dig into the heart of that Super Bowl run, there are a few key contributors that stick out for the defending champs. Funnily enough, there’s no consensus path they all took to this roster.

You have drafted players like Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp, who were both in contention for Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year, respectively. You have Matthew Stafford, Von Miller, and Jalen Ramsey, who were all involved in those big trades that sent away three first-round draft picks and a handful of Day 2 picks. You have free-agent additions like Odell Beckham Jr. and Andrew Whitworth, both of whom were instrumental in getting the Rams to the top of the football mountain last year.

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

So while the star players acquired via trade certainly put a nice bow on the Rams’ excellent team-building up to that point, it was ultimately a combination of those factors, and would simply not have happened had the Rams also not hit big on excellent talent in the draft.

There’s also an argument to be made for just how important it is to maintain a solid rotation of successful draft picks coming through the door each year. It adds depth, allows players to develop on cheaper contracts, and prevents the floor from falling out from underneath you. Should some of that talent slip away, you still have that depth, and the ability to replace declining veterans.

To put it simply, the more draft picks you have, the more likely you are to hit on players that can come up big for you in an economical way. That keeps you from being susceptible to the ultimate fallout from aging talent and other departures, which the Rams may very well be experiencing this season.

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The most proven way to build a successful roster still requires you to succeed across the board in many different ways: Hit on your draft picks, understand when to deal players for more draft capital, and occasionally make the splashy trade or signing to put the team over the top. This has been shown by multiple teams in the NFL with sustained success who aren’t in danger of the floor falling out from under them, such as the Buffalo Bills, Kansas City Chiefs, and Philadelphia Eagles.

The Rams’ strategy obviously paid off for them with a championship, but other teams that might want to copy that plan need to realize that it might only have worked because they were successful in other areas of the team-building process.

Ship off them picks at your own risk.

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WATCH: Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown lists all 16 WRs drafted ahead of him

Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown is still fueled by his long wait on draft weekend last year

Every year, there are NFL hopefuls who wait quite a while to hear their name called on draft weekend, and the experience of watching a long list of other players come off the board at their position builds a massive chip on their shoulder.

Such is the case for Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who was the 17th wide receiver selected in the 2021 NFL draft.

The Lions finally took St. Brown with the 112th overall pick in the fourth round, and the USC product still hasn’t forgotten the name of every receiver taken ahead of them, including where they went to college (video contains profanity):

St. Brown obviously channeled that frustration into success as a rookie, racking up 90 receptions for 912 yards and five touchdowns in his first NFL campaign.

Don’t be surprised if he eclipses those numbers this year, fueled by that long list of fellow pass-catchers.

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