In the beginning, there was college football.
Saturday stadiums filled with smoke and sound.
Marching bands roared. Legends were born in leather
helmets and bloody jerseys. College ruled the
land, far behind in its shadow. Professional
football took its first uncertain steps. Leagues
in name only. Teams rolled and folded like poker
hands. Players were signed in bars, paid in cash
and replaced by mourning. There were few rules.
No fairness. Just money. For the teams that had
it. But in 1936, inside a smoke -filled ballroom
at the Ritz -Carlton in Philadelphia, a desperate
man with a dead last football team made a bold
proposal. What if the worst team picked first?
That man was Bert Bell. That idea, the NFL draft.
No cameras, no red carpets, just paper, pencils
and hope. And in that moment, the future of pro
football was rewritten. This is where the spectacle
began. This is how the league found its balance.
This is a Sporting Almanac podcast. morning ben
morning jack good to see you face to face in
my living room yes very nice to see you too happy
easter happy easter to you too thank you for
my egg you're very welcome i hope you enjoy it
and i've only eaten about half of mine so far
which is restrained by uh my standards so uh
we'll start off as usual roundup of uh previous
weekend sporting action so starting off with
our main event um we had a Good evening watching
the snooker on Saturday night. We did. A bit
of a shock in play. As we know, we talked about
last week, Curse of the Crucible, where the previous
year's winner never wins and never retains their
title. And Kyron Wilson, last year's champion,
got knocked out by 21 -year -old Chinese player
Li Paifan in a deciding frame in a very, very
good performance from the young man. And a good
fight back as well from Kyron Wilson after he
looked dead and buried in the game. Great game
all round. We enjoyed that, didn't we Ben? We
did, yeah. We were the only two people watching
it in the pub, which was turning some heads because
we were reacting unceremoniously. Well, I'd say
probably a bigger reaction than people used to
for snookers in the bar watching snooker. Yeah,
no, it's good, but I do think you made a mistake,
Jack. I think referring to it as a shock. is
a misstep considering it is absolutely regulation
for the reigning champ to go out indeed yes fair
play i mean obviously in in terms of uh ranking
places it was a shock in terms of um expectations
it was a shock but in terms of the crucible curse
it's bang on the money yeah so if you did bet
on karen rilson as we told you not to um well
egg on your face indeed yeah There's also some
other fun news from qualifying in the World Champs,
with a chap from Wales getting two 1 -4 -7s in
the same game in qualifying, therefore securing
himself a bonus of £147 ,000 without even qualifying
for the tournament. Impressive. So that was good.
I can't remember the chap's name. I'll see if
I can find it. Jackson Page. Jackson Page, well
done. In other sporting news... Both Arsenal
teams, as expected, into the semi -final of the
Champions League. Lovely. The ladies had a difficult
first leg, though, against Lyon. So they're having
to come back from 2 -1 down in the away leg,
which may be a bridge too far, but we shall see.
Yeah, going away to Lyon will be a challenge,
to say the least. But, you know. Yeah, you never
know. And Liverpool are one win now away from
the Premier League title. Which is good news
for you. Good news for me. Yeah. Was there any
other sport on this weekend that needs recapping?
Yes. There was the Saudi Grand Prix. Yes. Oscar
Piastri won the Saudi Grand Prix. The IPL is
ongoing. The Butler, 97, red. The Red Roses won
again in the Women's Six Nations. So it's a Grand
Slam decider against France, which will be...
It's not a guaranteed win. Yeah. Anyway, so...
What's coming up? So as we've already mentioned,
a big game this weekend in the women's Six Nations,
the England Red Roses against France in a Grand
Slam decider. So go the Red Roses. Yeah. And
you said Eubank Junior versus Connor Byrne in
the boxing. Should be some fun. Otherwise, I
think it's a fairly quiet week. Obviously, you've
got your regulation fixtures in the football,
the rugby, the county championship, the IPL and
cricket. There's a skipped week in the Formula
One, but they're going to Miami after that. And
I think that's probably it for your headline
events this week, actually. Fairly low -key weekend
after a bumper Easter. But there is one big event
coming up this week. There is, Jack. Where are
we going? This week, I couldn't be happier. This
week, we are going to Green Bay, Wisconsin for
the 2025 NFL Draft. It's very exciting. It is
very exciting. And you're very much going to
be driving this one because this is your wheelhouse.
I think it's fair to say and for me to concede
that you have a much wider pool of knowledge
than I do when it comes to American sports. And
perhaps your first love of American sports is
American football. Yes, I would say so. I've
been reading a lot of books on this. I've been
doing a lot of research. I'm very, very excited
by this one. With no further ado, shall we crack
on with the NFL Draft? Let's. And, you know,
why don't you start as we like to do, Jack, by
just giving us the basics. Giving you the basics.
So the basics are the NFL Draft is an annual
event in which all the NFL teams, in reverse
order of how they finished the previous year,
pick from incoming college players to join their
teams. The best players in college football the
previous season will all be available to pick.
And in order to keep the league balanced, keep
the league fair, and I'll go into the history
of why they do that shortly, but in order to
keep it balanced and fair, they pick in reverse
order of how they finished the previous season.
So the team with the worst records, which this
season is the Tennessee Titans, will pick first.
And the team who won the Super Bowl, which last
season was the Philadelphia Eagles, will pick
last. We'll pick 32nd, I should say. And it goes
over seven rounds. And each team will pick in
that order unless they have traded their picks
or they have been, in a couple of cases, punished
by having picks withdrawn. I believe the Atlanta
Falcons were a bit keen on Kirk Cousins and approached
him earlier than they should have done. So they've
lost a round five pick, for example. But yeah,
that's basically how it works. It was created
to level the playing field. Bad teams get early
picks. Good teams get to pick later. Meaning
the star players from college football should
find themselves at the worst teams and should
keep the league relatively balanced. It's a boss
idea. I absolutely love this about American sports.
Like the draft system just stops basically rich
oligarchs, investment bankers from just buying
out sports as a hobby and dominating it. I think
like the most... The NFL wins by any single franchise
is only like seven or something. I think it's
the Patriots with six followed by the, oh no,
level with the Steelers with six, yeah, and then
the 49ers with five and the Cowboys with five
behind. So yeah, in over 50 years of the NFL
in the Super Bowl era, started in 1967, there
have been, no team has won it more than seven
times, which when you compare it to, let's compare
it to the Premier League, for example, in the
past. 30 years has been dominated largely by
two teams out of Manchester, so it goes to show
there is benefit to doing that. And the same
with a lot of other sports leagues around the
world. And no one's ever won it three times in
a row? No, no one's ever won it three times in
a row. It has been defended, but never done three
times in a row. It would have been three times
in a row this season had the Kansas City Chiefs.
Not being absolutely pummeled by the Eagles.
I think this happened a couple of times recently
as well, wasn't it? The Patriots made a couple.
Yes, yeah. Three times in a row. Yeah, but it's
a hard league to dominate and the reason behind
that is the draft. There is salary caps as well.
It's a league designed for fairness and I can
go into the history and I can tell you why it's
a league designed by fairness because it was
a league created in the first place essentially
to strive to find a bit of balance. And that
sort of mentality has been taken forward over
time. Yes, boss. Shall I dive into the history
then? Yeah, where it all began. Where it all
began. Well, as I said in the intro, where it
all began was college football. College football
was the biggest, in the early 20th century, in
the 1910s, 1920s, two sports dominated American
sport more than any other. Baseball, of course.
Naturally. And college football. which in certain
parts of the country it certainly still does,
especially in the south, in Texas. College football
was a resoundingly amateur sport. There was big
links between college football and the Olympic
movement. A lot of college players would play
football in the winter and would do athletics,
either decathlon and events like that in the
summer. So you'd end up with a lot of Olympians
coming out of it, such as Jim Thorpe, famously.
who was a gold medal winner at the 1912 Olympics
and also a college football star. On the back
of this, the early days of professional football
in America was there were professional clubs,
they would pay players and they would pay players
in order to get their fans in. They'd pay a star
like Jim Thorpe, for example, to come and play
for them, advertise it heavily and try and get
as many fans through the gate as they possibly
can. But what they'd find was it was impossible
to maintain a sort of level of fan affection
for your team. when the bloke who played for
you this week would be playing for the other
team the week after. Guns for hire. Guns for
hire. And while they would get a lot of people
through the door, these big names, there was
no consistency. The bidding wars between the
teams was costing the owners a lot of money,
and it was to no one's benefit, really. The fans
weren't getting as good a product as they want,
and the owners certainly weren't, because they
were having to pay too much money for inconsistence.
inconsistent staff i mean that's a pretty wild
setup i guess it's very american though just
basically try and put on the best show possible
hire people as and when they become available
yeah so so in 1920 i mean the professional football
was barely a footnote it's just a ragtag collection
of teams struggling for survival scraping together
rosters however they could but that tide was
turning because um in 1920 in canton ohio there
was an try and bring some structure to the chaos.
Originally called the American Professional Football
Association, it was at first little more than
a loose collection of small town teams, car dealerships
doubling up as meeting houses for the owners,
and players who generally worked second jobs
during the week and would just supplement their
income with the money made from football. So
the first season of the APFA in 1920 had 14 teams
playing in it. and see if you can use your mind
and work out which of these teams are still in
the NFL today, because there are a couple of
them. The Akron Pros, the Buffalo All -Americans,
the Campton Bulldogs, the Chicago Cardinals,
the Chicago Tigers, the Cleveland Tigers, the
Columbus Panhandles, the Dayton Triangles, the
Decatur Stalys, the Detroit Heralds, the Hammond
Pros, the Muncie Flyers, the Rochester Jeffersons,
and the Rock Island Independents. I reckon one
of those two Chicago teams, the Cleveland team,
the Buffalo team. I think that's probably the
best I can recount. Chicago Cardinals. Now the
Bears. No, Chicago Cardinals, now the Arizona
Cardinals. Ah, okay. So the Chicago Cardinals
later became the Louis Cardinals and then became
the Phoenix Cardinals and then the Arizona Cardinals.
So in the classic history of American sports.
And also the more surprising one of those was
the Decatur Stalys, who, as you correctly pointed
out, now known as the Chicago Bears. Yeah, I
thought the Bears would still be kicking around.
I'm surprised that Buffalo not. No, no. That's
not the Bills. Buffalo were a little bit down
the line. But yeah, so there you go. And over
the next few years, more familiar names would
join the league. The Philadelphia Eagles would
join. The Pittsburgh Pirates initially became
the Pittsburgh Steelers would join with little
success at first. And the Eagles would become
fairly influential in our topic. They certainly
would. actually lends us quite nicely to moving
on to the next stage. So from 1922 onwards, the
league structure stayed relatively the same.
Teams playing an undefined number of games per
season. And at the end of it, they'd look at
the records and try and decide who the champion
was. It was very, very all over the place like
that. But in 1922, they did make one decision
which has stuck to this day. They renamed the
league the National Football League. It's quite
famous now. Quite famous now, indeed. professional
football teams were getting college players to
play for them affecting the college players eligibility
and obviously that was shall we say royally pissing
off the colleges as you can imagine so there
was a lot of fight back from the colleges and
the NFL or the the APFA as it originally was
was founded on several principles one was making
sure games were getting scheduled consistently
One was making sure that there was better control
over the selecting of college players and the
use of college players and making sure it was
after their college careers have ended that they
were being used and also just to generally promote
the game of American football. So the draft was
a natural progression to this. At the time, the
NFL was a mess of imbalance. There were a handful
of successful franchises, the Chicago Bears and
New York Giants. They could sign whatever player
they wanted. Money talked. There was no rules
to stop them. The weaker teams, last year after
year, with no way out that they could see. And
Bert Bell and his Philadelphia Eagles, his team
were broke. His stadium was half empty every
week. He couldn't attract talent no matter how
hard he tried. So he proposed something radical.
A college draft where the worst teams pick first,
the best teams would have to wait their turn.
He called it a system of competitive parity.
And the other owners, surprisingly, agreed with
him. That is boss, though. That's some people
with the interests of their sport in mind and
not their own self -interest. And that is definitely
lost in most sports. It was an understanding
that what benefited the league as a whole benefited
the teams themselves. Fans do not want to go
to watch a sport where it's a foregone conclusion
every week, where there's lopsided scores. They
know there's no chance for their team to succeed.
They don't want to support a team. They don't
want to turn up week on week when the team's
getting back. That still happens to this day.
Even in a popular sport like the NFL, teams who
are struggling struggle to sell out their stadiums,
and that's no good for anyone. Having a competitive
league, while it might make it slightly harder
to achieve success, which is the ultimate goal
of sports, it makes it easier to consistently
achieve. You bounce the books. It's good because,
like you say, even when you're getting smoked,
there's a way out. It might not happen overnight.
It might take a little while. That's it. You've
touched upon it. It's that word, that most important
word in sport. Hope. Exactly, man. That is spot
on, really. It's the New York Jets, of whom I
am unfortunately a fan. Every season when you're
2 -7 or whatever you are, when the season's gone,
it gives you hope for the next year. You know
you can go ahead and you can start looking at
the mock drafts and start planning for the next
season and start thinking about what you're going
to do with that top five pick that you're inevitably
going to end up with next season. Jacksonville
Jags. Exactly. It's hope. It gives you something
to look forward to even when all is lost. It
gives you reason to be optimistic when in any
other sport, in any other country in the world,
There just wouldn't be any New York Jets fans
left because it's been so long since they've
had any real success. It's not the same thing
because obviously the NFL is a franchise system
and there isn't a relegation promotion aspect
to it. But it's the same principle as the pyramid
structure of domestic football. There's a way
to the top. There is a way to the top. And that
gives you your fans hope. It romanticizes it.
It allows you or it builds up a tolerance, should
we say, for performance or struggles. But that
also makes like that is part of sport, isn't
it? That's part of the reason why you and I love
it is because it makes the good times sweeter
when you've been rubbish. It does. Like if you
dominate all the time, then you become entitled.
And that's no good for anyone either. But anyway,
sorry, we're digressing because we get philosophical
about this stuff. We get romantic about this
stuff. Romantic's the right word. But no, I think
it's unreal. And I think Mr. Bell deserves a
lot of credit for his suggestion. And to be fair,
I think all the other owners in the league at
the time also deserve a lot of credit for seeing
the bigger picture because you wouldn't have
the iconic, the long -lasting, the majesty. of
the nfl that you have today without that proposal
yeah it was it was a difficult start they were
struggling with um stability teams coming teams
leaving um teams going broke and it it was one
of the key factors i think in stabilizing the
league and allowing it um to get to the point
there's only been since since this point in history
since just before the war it's only been a small
handful of teams maybe three teams i think they've
dropped out of the nfl since then They have gained
teams over the years. Obviously, leagues expanded,
expansion drafts, entire leagues being absorbed
into it, which we'll come to. But yeah, I think
one of the key reasons has been the draft. And
as I said, the first one was held on the 8th
of February, 1936. So now we've got the draft.
Yeah. You want to start telling us about the
draft? The Ritz -Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia,
the first NFL draft. Nine teams, nine rounds,
81 total selections. As I said, no combine, no
scouting departments, no television coverage,
no red carpet. Teams relying on newspaper clippings,
word of mouth, gut instinct. Sounds a lot like
what it's still like today, to be honest. They
just put some frills and bows around it. Yeah,
gut instinct certainly still plays a part of
it, and sometimes for the best, sometimes for
the worst. I mean, players weren't even told
they were drafted. Some of them only found out
weeks later when they read it in the newspaper.
That's absolutely mental. It's incredible. That
is actually mental. I've got another goof story.
The very first pick, number one pick of the very
first draft, was a man named Jay Berwanger. He
was picked, as you would imagine, by the Philadelphia
Eagles, Bert Bell's team, who had the first pick.
He was a halfback out of the University of Chicago,
and he was the first ever winner of a trophy
known as the Downtown Athletic Club Trophy. which
was at the time reserved for the most valuable
player east of the Mississippi. But the following
year was expanded to the whole country and was
named after the recently deceased athletic director
of the Downtown Athletic Club, John Heisman.
Oh, that guy's kind of famous these days. And
yes, it has been awarded every season to the
best college football player. The Heisman Trophy,
the first ever winner, Jay Berwanger. He was
drafted number one by the Eagles. He was a bona
fide star. He was fast, tough, nationally known.
He was the kind of player their team could build
their franchise around. There was one problem,
though. He didn't want to play. He asked for
$1 ,000 a game, which was a high price, especially
in the Depression era that this was, and the
Eagles simply couldn't afford it. I think he
wanted $15 ,000 for the season. They offered,
I think, $13 ,500, which seems like... Small
change nowadays, even with inflation taken into
account. So they traded his rights to the Chicago
Bears, who couldn't meet his demands either.
So in the end, Jay Boehringer never played a
single down in the NFL. What an idiot. Instead,
he took a job working for a rubber company. He
did quietly admit later that he regretted not
playing, but by then he had moved on and so had
the game. He kept his Heisman Trophy, and unsure
what to leave it, he left it as, Ant's house,
and she used it as a doorstop for years. What
a dope, man. I mean, yeah, it's a different era.
The same trophy now rests in the University of
Chicago's Hall of Fame. So, there you go. Yeah.
I mean, he's got his place in history, I guess.
It counts for something. Yeah. He was the first.
He was the prototype. I wish someone did that
today. I know. So, there we are. That was the
very first draft. As I mentioned, it's still
going on to this day. It's a well -regulated
system. It's designed to give every team a shot
at success. Teams are able to trade their picks
as well. If you want to acquire a player during
the season or before a season, you can use your
draft picks to trade for them, or you can trade
within the draft itself and move yourself higher
in the draft. some teams are better at doing
that than others some teams certainly are and
uh the draft rotates location every year nowadays
and this year as i mentioned it is in green bay
wisconsin um which is the smallest city to host
an nfl club and one of the main long -term success
stories of the league very successful also very
bloody cold in green very cold especially in
february yeah especially in april now isn't it
and they uh When Green Bay get to the postseason,
when they get to the playoffs and they get a
home drive, it is often a factor, I suspect,
in their ability to progress. Just a home field
advantage, just your classic home field advantage,
like minus 20, snowing, horrible. Indeed. I might
be exaggerating slightly with attempts, but still.
No, no, you're definitely not. So each team is
limited by time. So in the first round, you get
10 minutes. In the second round, you get seven
minutes. The first round is held on Thursday,
and then later rounds are held on later days,
but all the attention is on the first round,
really. If time expires on a pick, the team don't
lose the pick, but the next team can jump ahead
of them and can pick before them. I've read about
this a few times. It's quite fun. It has happened.
Yeah, it has happened. It's kind of interesting.
It means you just missed the opportunity to draw
someone. if someone else picks him before you,
right? Essentially, you lose your spot in the
draft. You move down one, someone can sneak in
before you. Yeah, and then you can just slip
it. You could still make a selection. It must
be annoying for everyone if you get out of sync,
to be honest. It shouldn't happen, but it does
happen. Especially because, as I mentioned, you
can trade during the draft. So if you're knee
-deep in trying to get a trade through, then
yeah, it can take over. You also get compensatory
picks as well. So this is linked to... free agents
if teams lose free agents and are deemed to have
been put at a disadvantage because of it um they
may be awarded extra picks which are later in
the draft rounds three to seven um so yeah if
you're a new you might be coming on to this jack
so i might be jumping the gun slightly but when
they do have expansions and there's new franchises
they automatically get first pick yeah and you
also have an expansion draft where this is a
second type of draft that can occur where uh
teams have can protect a certain number of their
players, but then the new team gets to pick from
the remainder. So it means they will have a competitive
squad from season one is the idea. So everything
is, everything is aimed at, um, uh, consist at,
uh, fairness. Yeah. Nobody gets a competitive
advantage through finances, which is usually
where the disparity emerges. There's some traditions
linked with the draft as well. Um, famously you
have mystery irrelevant. Oh, yeah. The very last
pick in the draft, and it's a bit of a tongue
-in -cheek title. But some have gone on to success.
Most recently, Brock Purdy in 2022, who has had
a very successful start to his NFL career with
the 49ers, including playing in the Super Bowl.
Yeah. Although he lost. He did lose to... Who
did he lose to again? Chiefs. Yeah, I was going
to say. I thought it was the Chiefs. I was going
to guess the Chiefs, but... It would be... A
good guess. Yeah. So teams sometimes bring in
celebrity fans, maybe military members or even
mascots to announce picks in the draft as well.
The only one that I know of off the top of my
head is I know that Bradley Cooper is a massive
Eagles fan. Yeah. If anyone has ever seen Silver
Linings playbook, they weave that in quite heavily
into that storyline. Well, anyone who's ever
watched a Philadelphia Eagles game, he's usually
there. He certainly was there for the Super Bowl
this year. But yeah, it's become a massive televised
event. Hundreds of thousands of fans. attending
in person but as i mentioned it wasn't always
like that um so what we're going to do is we're
going to take a a decade by decade walk through
the history of the draft and whistle stop i'll
tell you yeah just a whistle stop i'll tell you
a few cool stories i'll tell you a few notable
picks whether they went on to achieve success
or otherwise and um then we're gonna have a go
at discussing some of the better picks and some
of the worst picks indeed some of the uh The
draft busts. Yeah. I'll start off with a comfortable
place for us, Ben, the 1940s. Oh, this is our
sweet spot. Are we going four for four? We are
going four for four. Let's hear it. So over 600
NFL players served in the war effort, and some
of them never came back. Other players, such
as Chuck Bedmerick, who was drafted in 1949,
had already become a war hero. before he was
even drafted and before he even went to college.
In the 1943 draft, famously included players
who were already in uniform with teams gambling
on futures they may never see. It was a strange
time, but the league kept going during the war,
ostensibly for the benefit of the morale of the
people. I think there's a certain amount of justification
for that. America's a big place. It kept going
with replacement players. other players getting
opportunities who might not otherwise. Would
have felt pretty... No, do I comment on that?
I don't know. What's that? I was going to say,
very able -bodied chaps still playing in the
National Football League whilst other able -bodied
chaps giving up their place in the National Football
League. Yeah, it's a fair comment. I mean, I'm
sure there's plenty of people who made that comment
at the time. In fact, there certainly were plenty
of people making that comment at the time. But
there were obviously good reasons as well for...
people to still be on the home front during the
war effort. Yeah, of course. And a lot of them
were. I'm being a dick. A lot of the players
were working during the week and just playing
at weekends. All I was trying to comment on,
Jack, is I would rather be playing in the National
Football League than on Iwo Jima. I think that
is a fair comment indeed. So drafts continued
despite the war. Many draftees, as I said, went
straight into service. And the 1943 draft, as
a result, had a... Had a record 32 rounds as
teams desperately tried to fill their rosters
that were depleted by enlistments. And it was
common for players at this point to debut years
after being selected for obvious reasons. In
order to keep going, some teams even merged and
became single teams. The Philadelphia Eagles
and the Pittsburgh Steelers united to become
a single team who were called the Steagles. I
like it. With player numbers so low, they merged
for one season. It was wartime improvisation
at its finest and was described by one of their
players as the NFL taking two bad teams and making
them worse. Worst of both worlds. So I've got
a couple of notable war stories because, after
all, we love a war story. We do. And these are
two very good war stories, I think. So the first
one is about a man called Alblosis. Alb? Al Blosis.
Oh, okay. Nice. Al Blosis. So, Al. Yes. He was,
shall we say, a towering figure. He was 6 '6
and 250 pounds. He was an immovable force in
the offensive line in New York for the New York
Giants. He was drafted in the fifth round of
the 1942 NFL Draft. So perhaps it's not a man
that you want to come across either on a football
pitch or a battlefield. No. His massive frame
made him a very imposing offensive tackle in
the offensive line. And in his rookie season,
he quickly became a starter for the Giants. For
two seasons, he powered through defences, showing
the same strength that made him a track and field
star as well at college. I bet he was devilishly
handsome too. His presence was undeniable. But
war changed that. War changed the direction his
life takes. He was desperate to join the military.
So as we were saying, there's reasons people
might not be in the military. And one reason
for Al was he simply was too tall to join the
military. That's mental. They had a size limit
for practical reasons. Tanks. Yeah, for simply
fitting within certain transport vehicles and
also for other logistical reasons. You couldn't
serve on the front lines as a man of his height.
But he kept pushing, he kept pushing, kept asking
for active duty. And as you can imagine, he was
a persistent man. And eventually he was inducted
into the army in 1943, initially serving, as
you probably also would imagine, as a physical
instructor. But he wasn't happy with a desk job
and he underwent officer training at Fort Benning.
And during his officer training, he set an army
record for the longest hand grenade throw. So
I should point out that when I say this guy...
Well, who's keeping those records? I love it.
I should have mentioned when he was in college,
he was a shot putter with 17 .61 meters. But
no one shot puts grenades. And earned him a place
on the US track and field team and in the track
and field hall of fame years later, believe it
or not. but he could throw a grenade 94 yards
and 2 feet, which is a bit over 80 metres, which
is a heck of a throw. So he also could have been
an outfielder in baseball. He probably could
have been, but he was nicknamed the Human Howitzer
as a result. Which I think is a very good and
very fair nickname. That is very good. So he
was a second lieutenant. He has a gun arm, he's
6 '6", weighs the same amount as a car, was a
monster on the defensive line. held a record
for shot -putting and throwing grenades. And
demanded to be a front -line soldier in the army.
Interesting dude. Which he got. He was assigned
to the 28th Infantry Division as a second lieutenant,
I should say, because it's the American army,
not a second luf -tenant. His platoon was in
the Vosges Mountains of France, scouting enemy
positions, and on the 21st of January 1945, two
of his men went missing during a patrol. Without
hesitation, Al volunteered to search for them
alone, despite the dangers of the enemy lines.
Sorry, did you just say alone? Alone. Okay. He
was never seen again. That's unsurprising. Jesus.
Do we know what happened to him? So he was initially
listed as missing in action in April 1945. It
was confirmed that he had died. His body was
never recovered, but his legacy and his sacrifice.
Of course, live on. That's a miserable ending,
mate. You were gearing me up for like, I don't
know, whatever the high medal of honour stuff.
I've got another story. I'm sorry for Al. Yeah.
The New York Giants retired his number, which
was a rare gesture at the time. He was inducted
into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1986.
And his story even made the comic books where,
as I said, he was immortalized as the human howitzer.
But the New York Giants number 32 is still retired
to this day. That's boss. Yeah. That's a nice
ending. There's an athletic center in Germany,
United States Athletic Center, that was named
after him as well. So, yeah. He's got a legacy
and rightly so. Yeah, he was a man that when
duty called, he left behind a very promising
career for a higher call of service. And paid
the ultimate price. So that's Al Blosus. Al Blosus
is a pretty wonderful dude by the sounds of things.
Yeah. I have another story anyway. A second story.
I'm not going to say whether this one ends happily
or not. Oh, okay. So this one starts in 1937
at Notre Dame. Notre Dame, you mean? Notre Dame,
I do apologize. 40 ,000 fans watching Notre Dame
versus USC. Score was tied. The Fighting Irish.
Full -back Mario Tonelli, wearing number 58,
burst into the open field with a dazzling 68
-yard run. He tore towards the Trojan goal line
and bringing the Fighting Irish to the cusp of
victory. On the very next play, he drove the
ball in himself, touched down, the stadium exploded
with joy. The run will go down in Notre Dame
history, but for Tonelli, a different future
was ahead of him. I can't possibly guess what
it might have been. He was the son of Italian
immigrants from suburban Chicago. He'd suffered
burns over a lot of his body when he was a child.
Doctors saying he might never walk again. But
both his father and Mario himself didn't accept
that. He walked, he ran, and he became a football
star. So in 1940, he was drafted with the 195th
pick of the draft by the Chicago Cardinals, his
hometown team. But when the world itself began
to burn... Mario set aside his game. That was
very nicely done, can I just say. Thank you.
Saying he has a duty to serve. He joined the
army in 1941. And on December 7th, 1941, he was
stationed at Clarkfield in the Philippines. And
later that day, bombs fell on Pearl Harbor and
the United States were drawn into the war. Pearl
Harbor's quite a historic moment. So he... The
garrison there held out for five months until
the 9th of April 1942. He held out with his brothers
-in -arms, starving, sick in the jungles of Bataan.
And then came the Bataan Death March, which you
may have heard of. That doesn't sound nice. 60
miles with no food and no water, men collapsing
from first, shot in the back if they slowed down.
Mario Tonelli was, at the time, 200 pounds of
muscle and resolve. He was stripped of everything
except one item. his Notre Dame class ring, which
he still had on him. A Japanese guard spotted
it, demanded it. Tonelli refused to hand it over
until a friend whispered to him, no ring is worth
dying for. So reluctantly, he handed his ring
over to the Japanese guard. But just a few moments
later, this is one of the best things I've listened
to this. A few moments later, a Japanese officer
approached him and in perfect English said to
him, did one of my men take something from you?
Tonelli nodded and said, yes, my Notre Dame ring.
And the officer handed it back to him saying,
I studied in America at USC. I saw the game in
1937. I know who you are and I know what this
ring means to you. Whoa. And then he walked away.
So just in that second, an enemy had become a
fellow man, a lifeline. That's also, I mean,
like if anybody knows anything about the general
history of... the japanese's conduct in world
war ii they were not renowned for their empathy
or their humanity at various stages so i mean
i'm not i'm casting aspersions on all japanese
soldiers there but those sorts of stories are
fairly rare i think yeah that's pretty cool um
he kept the ring hidden anyway for three and
a half years through the marches through the
torture through through the marches through torture
through starvation uh he survived he survived
forced labor he survived camps He contracted
malaria, beriberi, parasites. At night, he stared
at the ring and remembered who he was. And in
1944, he was packed into the belly of a Japanese
hell ship to spend 62 days in darkness, in the
stench with no food, no hope, and eventually
made it to a labour camp near Yakachi. When he
was registered, he was handed a uniform and a
prison number. It was number 58, which was the
same number he wore. That's taking the piss.
I like how life does that. At that moment, he
said to himself, he was going to make it. Well,
you would, yeah. And he did. Yeah, damn right.
That summer, American planes flew overhead. One
dropped a can of cigarettes with a handkerchief
parachute. It read, hostilities have ceased.
We will see you soon. That was August 1945. That's
cute. Barrels of food, medicine, cigarettes came
after that. When he was liberated, Mario Tonelli
weighed 98 pounds. Whoa. But he was alive, and
he still had his ring. Jesus Christ. It's funny,
though, isn't it? Like, that story, I mean, that's
actually a nice story. Thanks, Jack. But I do
think, like, I don't know. Again, without over
-romanticizing, which is dangerous, but it's
fun. When people say, like, sport gives people
hope. Yeah. Like, I do think, like, It can become
a bit of a cliche. Lots of things give people
hope, depending on, obviously, your preferences
and stuff. But stuff like that, I think, is just
really hard to articulate. Like how that... I
don't even know what I'm trying to say. I know
exactly what you mean. You don't really need
to. It unites. I mean, obviously, a Japanese
officer... may or may not have certain things
in common with an American soldier. But to have
been in that moment, shared an incredible moment
that was well -reported, that was well -acknowledged,
and is still remembered to this day, is incredible.
I think it's because it's fun at its core, right?
Like, it's all about joy, enjoyment. Honor. Yeah,
exactly. Respect. Yeah, it's all about the good
things. At its best. I mean, obviously, sport
sometimes strays into its worst. But at its best,
it's all the things that people unanimously value.
And I think, as you say, it's very hard to deny
those common denominators and those factors that
bring people together sometimes. I think that's
why it's cool. Anyway. Absolutely. Anyway, Mario
Tonelli, he returned to Chicago. He gained just
enough weight to play one more game for the Cardinals.
He was only in for a couple of plays, but it
meant it was enough to get him his pension, which
was obviously a very nice gesture from the coaching
team in Chicago. He turned to service again after
that in public life, 42 years of work for Cook
County in Illinois. And he died in January 2003,
a hero well -remembered by both Notre Dame and
football fans. Notre Dame. Yeah. Number 58, Mario
Tonelli. Good story. Yeah, that's a very good
story. And we've done it. We've, we've, we've
the war in. Although this one was probably one
of more, more easier. Yeah. I really liked that
story. That is a very cool story. Very good story.
Yeah. So that takes, that's the forties, I assume.
I've got a little bit more for the forties. You
can't, can you, can you better that? No, but
this is going back to pure history. This is not,
I'll move away from the war now. Okay. But. One
thing that happened shortly after the war, there
had been rival leagues to the NFL before the
war, but just after the war, there was another
serious attempt to form a rival league, which
was the All -America Football Conference, the
AAFC, which was established partly in response
to the NFL's dominance and the desire to create
an alternative league, but it was most notable
for featuring three teams particularly, which
were... The Cleveland Browns, the San Francisco
49ers, and the Baltimore Colts. Yeah, this is
a fairly important bit of history. Yeah, around
four seasons, and this is actually a good contrast
because one of the reasons it failed was because
they did not have a balancing system. They allowed
the richer teams to sign up all the best of players,
and the Cleveland Browns won every single championship.
It struggled financially as a result, but it
did come up with some innovations which impacted
the NFL in later years, such as different player
recruitment methods. and it's comparative play
as well, grew attention to professional football,
and also let other potential league starters
know that it was possible. There was an opportunity
there if you got your balance right. So the NFL
expanded once the AAFC folded in 1949. It expanded
and absorbed those three teams I mentioned, the
Browns 49ers and Colts, who remain in the league
to this day, albeit Baltimore Colts are now in
Indianapolis. Another Baltimore team would emerge,
though. Another Baltimore team would emerge and
we will come to more Baltimore later. In fact,
very soon indeed. So there was also a significant
impact that the AAFC played in integrating African
-American players into professional football.
The NFL had largely excluded black players prior
to the end of World War II. The AFC, though,
was more progressive and several teams signed
several African -American players, most notably
the Cleveland Browns under coach Paul Brown,
who did name the team after himself. signed standout
black players such as marion motley and bill
willis and when they were integrated themselves
into the nfl they took the players with them
and integrated the nfl in doing so um when they
were absorbed into the nfl in 1950 so there's
a positive that came out of it yeah that's pretty
cool and obviously um african american players
The impact they have played on the NFL is immeasurable.
I don't know enough about American racial history,
but there seems to be a theme emerging. Yes,
a fair bit. Maybe a more positive spin on it,
and this might be an extremely ignorant thing
for me to say, but it does seem as though sport
led the way again, though, in terms of... Well,
to a certain extent. You can say for positive
and negative reasons. Ultimately, what it comes
down to is if owners are willing to look over
their bias because they want to win. I'm not
suggesting the motivations were pure, but at
least the opportunities may have arisen. Obviously,
Jackie Robinson is rightly lauded to this day
for breaking the colour barrier in baseball.
It was celebrated a few days ago, actually, April
15th. Every year is Jackie Robinson Day in the
MLB, where every player wears his number, number
42. And the rest of the year, no one wears number
42 anymore. It has been retired league -wide.
So it's something. But yeah, I mean, we could
do a whole episode on that stuff. We could do
a whole episode on that stuff, yeah. Honestly.
Nevertheless, that sets you up for the 1950s.
And this is probably... Not long to go, guys.
Just 70 years. Oh yeah, we'll be fine. Stick
with us. Yeah. 1950s was probably where NFL...
Some call it the golden era of the sport, as
you would imagine, but it's probably the era
in which the NFL truly started to become the
biggest sports league in America, or certainly
worked towards it. And we're going to take a
trip back in time to the soot -stroke neighbourhoods
of Pittsburgh once more, where a boy with a buzz
cut in a dream grew up hauling coal to put food
on the table. His name was Johnny Unitas, and
by the time he left the game, they called him
the Golden Arm, which I think tells you a lot
about him. But at the time, before a history
-making day in 1958, he was just a skinny kid
trying to prove he belonged. Johnny U's story
doesn't begin with trophies, it begins with tragedy.
His father died when he was just five years old,
his mother worked multiple jobs to keep the family
afloat, and at just eight years old, he was hauling
coal after school to help out. He wasn't big
when he got to college, or when he was trying
to get into college. He barely scratched 130
pounds soaking wet. 5 '10", 130 pounds, trying
to play quarterback and wasn't getting much attention.
Notre Dame took one look at him and said he was
too small, but Louisville took a chance on him.
Even there, it is alleged that the coach initially
mistook him for the water boy when he first walked
out onto the field. But he did grow, not just
in height, he hit 6 '1", but in resolve and in
ability too. 6 '1 and 170 pounds, I think he
was, 180 pounds maybe. By the time the 1955 draft
came around, the Steelers were willing to take
a punt on the hometown kid in the ninth round,
the 102nd pick overall. Chance to become a hometown
hero? Not quite. They didn't even let him suit
up for a game, not even in preseason. They had
three quarterbacks on their roster ahead of him,
and they never took a chance on him, never looked
at him, and they cut him before the season began
in 1955. And he was understandably... Frustrated
by that. Yeah, I'd be pissed off. When the coach
cut him, he said to the coach, I wouldn't mind
if you'd taken a look at me, but you haven't.
You didn't give me a chance and you're just cutting
me. He had a baby at home and bills piling up.
So he went to work on a construction crew whilst
moonlighting as a semi -pro quarterback for the
Bloomfield Rams, playing offense, defense, and
special teams. If there was a snap to be played,
Johnny Yu was there for it. I'd like to know
if Johnny Yu looks back on that period more fondly
than he does on his NFL career, which presumably
is going to be forthcoming. There is more coming.
But yeah, I mean, he led the Rams through an
undefeated season and their championship, albeit
in a minor semi -professional league. But as
a result of that, word got out. And one day,
Don Kellett of the Baltimore Colts picked up
the phone. The Colts weren't NFL royalty. In
their three seasons since entering the league
again, a team called the Colts originally entered
the league, as I mentioned before. They actually
folded and a new Baltimore Colts came up in 1953.
But they never won more than five games in a
season since they entered the league. They were
not big shots. But with Johnny Unitas on the
center, everything changed. From 1957 to 1971,
the Colts never had a losing season. Johnny Unitas
once threw touchdown in 47 consecutive games,
which was a record that was untouched until Drew
Brees passed it in 2012. He was no slouch either.
And he did it in a brutal era for quarterbacks,
which is now called the dead ball era. Minimal
quarterback protection, receivers jammed and
hit all the way downfield. No domes, obviously,
exposed to the weather, no turf, just cold, mud
and pain. Yeah, that sounds pretty cool, to be
fair. Better than today's game where you... Half
a millisecond late. I think there's a reason
people refer to it as the golden age. I think
there might be old -timers out there who probably
like the blood and the mud and the spit and the
tears. As long as it's not barbaric, but the
way they're protected these days is just a bit
dark. Yeah, they certainly are. You could argue
they're overprotected now, but again, that's
a debate for another day. Yeah, I should probably
quickly say, for those that are uninitiated with
American football, a losing season is basically
a season where you lose more than you win. American
football, how many regular season games are there
now? 17 now so if you have a 9 -8 record that
would be a winning season an 8 -9 record or worse
would be a losing season there you go essentially
thanks Jack yeah so when I say the Colts never
had a losing season between 1957 -1961 they always
won more games than they lost which is usually
gets you around and about the playoffs yeah usually
a 9 -8 record nowadays you probably be in the
playoffs one every two seasons yeah yeah depends
on other factors but if you get 10 -7 you're
normally in the playoffs But then a game came,
or a game in the era came that would change the
NFL forever. It was December the 28th, 1958 at
Yankee Stadium. The Colts had finished the season
with the best record in their division and had
reached what was then the NFL championship game.
They were playing the New York Giants, the all
-conquering New York Giants. There was a national
TV audience and there was 15 future Hall of Famers
on the field and even more on the sidelines.
on the sidelines for the Giants. Their offense
was being called by Vince Lombardi, who would
later become a legendary Green Bay Packers coach.
Also, the trophy is named after him. To say Vince
Lombardi is a legend is not a statement. The
Lombardi trophy is a trophy given to the Super
Bowl winners after the Green Bay Packers won
the first two Super Bowls. Their defense, the
Giants' defense, was coached by Tom Landry, who
also became a legend for the Dallas Cowboys and
the Super Bowl winner. And on the Colts' sideline,
there was Weeb Ubank, who was the future coach
of the New York Jets when they won their one
and only Super Bowl, Super Bowl III. The game
was a slugfest. The Giants had a 17 -14 lead
late in the fourth quarter. The Colts were pinned
back on their own 14 line. This is where Johnny
U wrote his name into history. There's something
they have in football that they call a two -minute
drill. That is... It is literally a drill you
will do over and over again. And it is for a
situation where you are near your own goal line
with two minutes on the clock and you have to
get it down the other end to score a touchdown
or a field goal to save the game or to win the
game. And it is something that is practiced relentlessly
today. And Johnny Unitas demonstrated a perfect
example of it in difficult circumstances in this
1958 NFL championship game. Threw passers forward.
Raymond Berry, his major receiver, caught a couple
of them. He moved the team forward with surgical
precision. He was controlling time as he did
it. And in just over a minute, he drove the Colts
86 yards to set up a field goal and force overtime,
which is the first sudden death overtime ever
in an NFL championship game. That's fine. Which
is a rare occurrence, even in the Super Bowl
to this day. From there, Unitas orchestrated
a drive that took the breath out of Yankee Stadium.
13 plays, 80 yards. down to the Giants' one -yard
line, and then he handed it off to Alan Amici,
who ran it over the line for a big hole created
and sealed the game and sealed the NFL championship
for the Colts. 23 -17, the first sudden -death
NFL championship and the first time the entire
country had seen professional football essentially
as something to be cherished. It wasn't just
a game. It was the moment, it has been argued,
that the NFL became America's game. 45 million
viewers watched it on national TV, which was
unheard of in 1958. Yeah, yeah. Didn't even know
that many people had TVs. Yeah, exactly. It transformed
the league from a second -tier sport into, I
mean, almost a national obsession. And right
at the centre of it all was Johnny Yu. Cool,
commanding, unbreakable. Grit, vision, determination.
Never say die attitude. He was called the first
modern quarterback, dictating play with his arm,
passing forward. On this cold December twilight
in front of millions of fans, he became a legend.
That is a good story. He comes up again. He won
a Super Bowl later as well, albeit at the twilight
of his career. He missed a lot of that game as
well because he got injured. As I mentioned as
well, this was a time where quarterbacks did
not have the protection they got now. They were
hit and they were hit hard. When they did, there
were injuries coming. It is relatively rare.
for quarterbacks to get injured nowadays. Well,
it's extremely rare, isn't it? Because they get
so looked after. I mean, again, me and you chew
the fat over this stuff in a way that presupposes
a degree of knowledge. For anyone who is interested,
a quarterback is just the guy. He's like, every
play goes through him. He's the most important
player on the pitch. Think of Fly Half in rugby,
if you're familiar with rugby. trying to compare
it to another sport maybe even football it'd
probably be your central midfielder um yeah like
the most iconic dude like yes yeah the team leader
everything um the quarterbacks have much higher
uh draft capital as they call it they go for
uh much higher in the draft than other positions
traditionally and teams will often take gambles
on quarterbacks that they wouldn't necessarily
take in other positions it is the key positions
only play on offense yes Yeah, it's an interesting
thing. It was probably around this time in 1958,
that sort of time, where you would have players
who only played offence or defence. It was called
the two -platoon system. There's a geezer in
this year's draft who can do both, isn't there?
I will be coming to it. Yeah, there is. It's
fairly rare that you get players who play offence
and defence because it is such a demanding sport
and it's such a specialised sport. There's not
really any benefit to it. But back in the day,
certainly in the early days, the 1920s and 30s,
you'd have 11 players who'd start the game and
finish the game. And they'd have positional offense
and defense. That changed. Eventually, they liberalized
the substitution rules so you could sub out your
whole team essentially between players when you
switch from offense to defense. And you'd still
have players playing both, but maybe your quarterbacks
or maybe your key running backs or whatever it
be would only play one of the two. It changes
over time, but it is. I think it's a cool thing
because it also opens up opportunities for more
people. It does, yeah. Different skill sets.
People get, like you said, specialists in certain
positions or roles, certain body compositions.
Yes. Better opportunities, that sort of thing.
A bit like rugby in that sense. There's a position
for everyone. There's a position for everyone,
exactly. It doesn't matter whether you're a big
guy or a small guy. You can be a punter. You
can be a field goal kicker. You can be a quarterback.
yeah some of my favorite players in the NFL are
kickers especially kicks and punters because
you look at them and be like there is no way
you're a professional sportsman in your life
your lanky look and everything but hey if you
can nail a field goal from 60 yards you're a
sportsman in anyone's book so precisely yeah
so I took us off on a tangent there only because
it's a highly technical sport that I've not even
got my head fully around so I imagine that we
need to make it a little bit accessible every
now and again We've only got six decades left
anyway. 1960. So the single most important thing
to happen probably in the history of the NFL
happened in the 1960s. In fact, why am I even
saying probably? The single most important thing
to ever happen in the history of the NFL happened
in 1960. And what was that? In 1960, a group
of frustrated and quite wealthy businessmen,
many of whom had been denied NFL ownership as
the NFL were reluctant to expand from their 12
-team setup that they had at the end of the 50s.
decided instead to start their own league, as
has happened previously. Only this time, what
they had that other leagues didn't have was extremely
deep pockets and the patience to let there be
losses for the first few seasons before they
established themselves. The league they formed
was called the American Football League, the
AFL. As I said, they were ambitious, well -funded,
ready to disrupt the status quo and ready to
break the stranglehold that the NFL had. on domestic
professional football. It was mocked as the Mickey
Mouse League at first, and even by the business
themselves, they called it the Foolish Club when
they first started up, fully aware of the amount
of money they were putting on the line to do
so. But one of the main ways the AFL managed
to establish itself as a successful league in
the early days was through the draft. The AFL
draft happened, well, often it happened on the
same day as the NFL draft. They used to... sort
of jockey for position within it because players
could be drafted by the AFL and NFL and at that
point a bidding war would begin to try and get
the players to play for you. So it was the same
draft? No, at first it was two different drafts.
So just declaring for the same talent, weren't
they? Yeah, so guys just declared to both drafts.
Right, okay. Yeah, so in the early days, someone
like a major star like Billy Cannon, who was
a 1959 Heisman Trophy winner, he signed with
the AFL. in the end, for the Houston Oilers,
who are now the Tennessee Titans, for a record
signing bonus. Even after making a handshake
deal with the NFL's Rams, sparking a contract
controversy went all the way to court, but was
found in the favor of the AFL. And things escalated
from there. The AFL and NFL began bidding wars
over top prospects. Players like Tommy Nobis,
dominant linebacker from Texas, were offered
staggering sums by both leagues. Nobis eventually
chose the NFL, the Falcons, in 1966. And then
came Joe Namath, the flashy quarterback from
Alabama. The AFL's New York Jets shattered records
by signing him for $427 ,000, which was the largest
contract in the history of football at the time
and really validated the AFL's legitimacy and
made Joe Namath a national star and made the
New York Jets into the champions in the end.
So there you go. Your New York Jets. There you
go. The NFL owners were increasingly alarmed
by this. To deal with sort of the skyrocketing
salaries, age and manipulation, they start creating
a hand -holding program, essentially a coordinated
effort to babysit potential draft picks before
the draft to A, stop AFL scouts or owners getting
their claws on them, and B, to keep them separate
from the media furore that was going on before
the draft itself. They'd essentially hire lovely
resorts or whatever else and... stick them in
there just put them in there with a minder yeah
well the NFL tended to have a minder the AFL
tended to get flashy results because as I mentioned
deep pockets they were rich yeah and yeah it
wasn't working for the NFL though veteran NFL
players as well who were suddenly earning less
than the new rookies with the rookies having
to be paid so much more to get to agree to contracts
started showing resent against them there was
rising discontent in locker rooms Rookies having
played down were driving sports cars and cashing
bigger checks than pro bowlers. And so we got
to the point where Dan Rooney of the Pittsburgh
Steelers said, the bidding wars were ruining
us. The AFL team seemed to have money to burn.
Which they did, by the sounds of things. It all
escalated. So for a while, an unwritten agreement
existed between the leagues, which was essentially
don't sign each other's players. So it was an
unwritten rule where if someone was drafted in
the AFL, they'd stay in the AFL. If they went
to free agency, They were a free game for AFL
teams, but NFL teams would leave them alone.
Basically, once you were in a league, you were
in that league for life. This ended in 1966 when
the New York Giants of the NFL broke ranks and
signed Pete Gogolak, who was an AFL star kicker
from the Buffalo Bills. Gogolak wasn't just any
kicker. He was the first soccer -style place
kicker in pro football history and helped revolutionize
both the position and that style of kicking.
His signing infuriated both leagues. He'd go
on to become the Giants' all -time leading scorer
with 646 points, which I believe he is still
to this day. As a kicker? As a kicker, yeah.
Jesus Christ, how many field goals does he kick?
Oh, plenty. I mean, I might whilst you're talking.
Yeah. But don't forget extra points as well.
Oh, yeah, true. I don't know if I'd be able to
do it, but go on. But as I said, the move ignited
an absolute firestorm. So the AFL retaliated
by targeting big -name NFL players. They were...
signing players before their contracts even expired
in the NFL, like getting pre -contract agreements
in place. Behind the scenes, there were cooler
heads who saw the writing on the wall. Both leagues
were bleeding money. It was to no one's benefit.
And there started being secret talks in the background.
Maybe, maybe it would be better if we just joined
forces here. So competition was great for players.
It was devastating for the owners, especially
the more traditional and less wealthy NFL ones.
Quiet talks began between NFL Commissioner Pete
Rozelle and AFL executives. Most of the owners,
though, were kept in the dark over this. As talks
intensified, the AFL Commissioner Joe Foss was
forced to resign because he was viewed as too
soft. He was replaced by the absolutely not too
soft Raiders coach and owner Al Davis, who had
personally expressed no intention of merging.
Davis believed the AFL could win the war, so
he doubled down. He made sure... Pre -contract
agreements were signed with NFL stars like Mike
Dicker, John Brody, even if they wouldn't join
until their current deals ended. Mike Dicker,
who would go on to become a coach. Yeah, he would.
And Rozelle and the NFL owners panicked. This
arms race, as I said, was unsustainable. Some
negotiations carried on even behind Al Davis
back, and it eventually led on the 8th of June
1966 to an announcement that the AFL and NFL
would be merging. And what's that resulted in?
For the purpose of this episode, the most significant
thing it resulted in was from 1967 there would
be a common draft. There would be a single draft
from 1967. The leagues would stay in their current
alignment and only playing games internally during
the regular season. But there would be an NFL
-AFL championship game every season, which was
later rebranded the Super Bowl. And there we
are. There we are. That's the modern format.
So there's a man called Lamar Hunt who came up
with that name. And Lamar Hunt is an excellent
guy. I could go, again, I could do a whole episode
on him, so I'm just going to skim through it.
But he's a famous executive in both American
football for these purposes. He's one of the
architects of the AFL. He also was instrumental
in forming Major League Soccer and the American
Open Cup, the US Open Cup is named for him. And
was also instrumental in taking the steps to
form the organizations, which eventually became
the ATP as well. Oh, really? Yeah, so the tennis...
He's a love sport then. Tennis tour, yeah. So
he's in the Hall of Fame, I believe, for all
three sports, for soccer, for football, and for
tennis. So I'm going to refer to it as soccer
and football for this episode. Yeah, I know,
which is a little bit vomit -inducing. I apologize
to everyone who doesn't like that. But I think
for this episode, it's appropriate. So yeah,
the two leagues merged in June 66. And from 1970,
they merged fully, becoming a single NFL with
two conferences, the AFC and the NFC. Al Davis
was furious. He was an opponent of Pete Rizal
for decades as a result, but the deal held. Poor
Al. Yeah. Christ, a river, pal. The first two
Super Bowls were both won by the Green Bay Packers.
who were the NFL champions and they won quite
comfortably in both games too. So there was a
lot of question marks around at that point saying,
is the NFL just going to be far too strong for
these upstarts? However, as I mentioned, Super
Bowl III, Joe Namath, the New York Jets delivered
16 -7 win over the Baltimore Colts. who just
a year later would actually join the AFC as part
of the merger. So they move across from the NFL
to the AFC, where the Indianapolis Colts remain
to this day. I missed something about Johnny
Unitas I like, actually. Well, just tell us about
it. I'll tell you about it. Why not? So Johnny
Unitas was a Baltimore Colt, and he lived in
the city of Baltimore. a obviously a massive
fan of the team in the city and in 1983 when
the Baltimore Colts were moved to Indianapolis
he along with other ex -players obviously this
is about 25 years removed from this greatest
win ever and only a decade or so removed from
their last Super Bowl win which Unitas was also
a part of they were disgusted as you can imagine
and from that day forward Johnny Unitas refused
to acknowledge the Indianapolis Colts saying
he When he was put in the Hall of Fame, he said
he would only accept being put in the Hall of
Fame if he was listed as a Baltimore cult, not
as any part of the Indianapolis cult. That's
cool. And then in 1995, 1996, in a strange set
of circumstances, the Cleveland Browns sort of
half moved to Baltimore and a new franchise was
formed. Eventually, the Cleveland Browns would
restart up again. but their players and personnel
moved to Baltimore and formed the Baltimore Ravens.
And right there, front and center for the first
game, Johnny Unitas was there for the Baltimore
Ravens, which I think, the one thing I hate about
American sports, I hate moving teams around.
I was about to talk about this with you, but
yeah. What I love about sport, one thing I love
about sport is the idea that I can go and sit
in the cop and be surrounded by people whose
granddad's sitting in the cop. Yeah, yeah. It's
like a community culture. Whose granddad's sitting
in the cop. whose granddad's probably sat in
the cot when it was first opened in the 1900s.
The sense of belonging. Tell stories they were
told by their granddad to their grandkids. Word
of mouth. They have this shared history, this
shared love. And the only offer to move a team
to an entirely different state, in many cases,
an entirely different side of the country. I
can't imagine how much that would hurt, but if
you were in Baltimore, you'd grown up, you'd
watched that 1958 championship game. 25 years
later, seeing your team moved. with all the love
and the memories and the adoration you have for
that. I can imagine the Ravens coming again was
a big thing, but it's gotta be bittersweet because
it's still not the team that you originally.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean like, It's the worst thing
about American sports. It's not even subtle.
We should definitely explain this. Basically,
because the NFL is a franchise system, the league
owns the teams effectively. You have owners and
stuff, but the league is ultimately in charge
of who is allowed to enter the league and where
they're based and this, that and the other. What
that effectively means is that you can for want
for a better phrase bid to move a team to another
location sometimes the NFL won't allow that to
happen because they do recognize the historical
significance of some of the teams that have been
in the league since the beginning so if you try
and move those they often get vetoed but generally
speaking you are allowed to move so like St.
Louis Rams are now the la rams and i think they
were originally the la rams they moved to st
louis and then back again um they're originally
the cleveland rams oh there we are and then jack
just explained a good example obviously with
with the baltimore colts and indianapolis um
there's plenty of examples of it but basically
it just means you could just be supporting a
team for 25 years and then they up sticks and
bugger off uh to the other side of the country
uh And you're left without a team. And if you
did that in the UK, because this is an alien
concept to UK sports fans. Nearly. Nearly an
alien concept. Well, Wimbledon. Yeah. But, like,
cause bloody riots. Yes, well, I mean... Not
for a club of Wimbledon's stature, but if you
try to move Liverpool somewhere or Manchester
United or, you know, Arsenal or, you know, even
Chelsea and, well, plenty of other clubs. But,
like... Yeah, imagine if you tried to move Newcastle
out of Newcastle or Leeds. Oh, you wouldn't get
as far as the city walls. Yeah, it just wouldn't
happen. It's a pretty annoying thing. It is.
But anyway, again, just a little bit of context
for people. Yeah, it's something that happens.
It's something that no one likes. It's happening
right now with... For those of you who may have
seen the film Moneyball, moving to a different
sport, the Oakland Athletics have had many years
of hardness, low budgets, occasional success,
as highlighted by that film, but they're currently
in the process of moving to Las Vegas. The Oakland
Raiders, who were the Oakland Raiders, have moved
to Las Vegas as well. Oakland is not an affluent
city. No, it's going well for the... It's going
well for the club. It's going well for the owners.
But it's nice for the people of Las Vegas to
have these sports clubs to watch. And obviously
new memories will be created. But, God, it must
hurt. It must suck, man. It must hurt so bad.
Especially the Oakland Raiders have such a bold
history. Like Super Bowl wins. John Madden coaching
them to a Super Bowl win in the 70s. Yeah, I
think another Super Bowl appearance about 20
years ago as well. Yeah, they've got a real big
history. It is what it is, but... It is what
it is, yeah, yeah. It's my least favourite part
about his sport. And Johnny Unitas, going back
to him, he has a statue of him. There's a couple
of statues of former NFL players outside the
Baltimore Ravens grounds. One of them is Ray
Lewis, who is a Baltimore Ravens legend. Won
a couple of Super Bowls with them. And the other
one is Johnny Unitas. Despite having never played
for the Ravens, he is a Baltimore legend. I love
that. That's boss. I love that as well. It's
nice to have the link. And he was a regular attendee
at Raven's Home Games until his death. So, yeah.
That's nice. So where have we got to now? 70s?
Oh, we're still in the 60s. Still in the 60s.
I just wanted to quickly touch on another sad
story. So the first ever African -American winner
of the Heisman Trophy was a man named Ernie Davis.
He had a difficult upbringing. Had a lot of talent,
obviously, and ended up at Syracuse University.
He played for them between 1959 and 1961. And
as I mentioned, he became the first African -American
winner of the Heisman Trophy, leading the nation
with an average of 7 .8 yards per carry as a
running back. I'm just throwing random stats.
No one knows what the fuck that means. He was
good. He was good. And his senior year was just
as successful. Ended with a Liberty Bowl victory
over Miami. But his, as I said, first African
-American to win the Heisman Trophy. He earned
the Walter Camp Memorial Trophy as well. And
his achievements even caught the attention of
President John F. Kennedy. who sent a message
honouring Davis for embodying the finest qualities
of competition, sportsmanship and citizenship
as well. So yeah, he was selected first overall
pick, as you imagine, by the Washington Redskins.
But unfortunately, his path to professional football
took a dramatic and sad turn when he was diagnosed
with leukemia. He was in remission for a brief
period. joined the Browns and Paul Brown, the
aforementioned Cleveland Browns coach, drew up
game plans and practices without physical contact.
He made an appearance during pre -season. He
ran out to the field with a spotlight following
him. But it was his last moment in the sport
as on May the 18th, 1963, at the age of 23, he
sadly passed away from leukemia. Fucking hell.
So yeah, sad story. I saw his immortalized as
a film called The Express, made about him, and
is obviously very much remembered as a trailblazer
for African -American athletes, and certainly
not the last African -American player to win
the Heisman Award. No, definitely not. Just a
quick thing there. So as the 60s went on, as
the NFL grew, the Super Bowl era started, the
modern era of the NFL. Changes were made to how
teams went about scouting. As I mentioned in
the original, in the old days, it was read newspaper
articles, go off word of mouth, get some tips
from your contacts. Yeah, largely that. But a
man named Jill Grant came along who was an executive
on the Dallas Cowboys and an integral part of
the Cowboys rose to prominence. in the 60s and
70s. They were only founded in 1960, but quickly
became a force and eventually became famously
the biggest, according to some reckoning, the
biggest sports club on the planet, the Dallas
Cowboys, the richest sports club on the planet.
America's team. America's team, exactly. With,
yeah, a lot of success, a lot of history. The
famous cheerleaders as well, whichever one. Documentary
on that. Yeah, documentary on Netflix about them.
If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend it. It's
very good. But he was, Jill Brown was credited
with revolutionizing NFL scouting. One of the
first to use technologies such as early computers
and data analysis to aid scouting and evaluating
talent. Obviously a practice that will become
common throughout the league. He also maintained
an extensive network of scouts and took an innovative
approach to player evaluation. which allowed
them to draft and develop key players, which
contributed to the team's success, including
figures like Roger Stalbeck, Tony Dorsett, Randy
White. In addition to his work with the Cowboys,
he contributed to the NFL draft and helped shape
the event into what it is today with his scouting
network and the influence other scouts took from
that. So yeah, it was instrumental. And another
man who, I'm going to move into the 1970s now,
just about. Just into the 1970s. Another man
who was key in revolutionising scouting and teams'
approach to scouting was a man named Bill Nunn,
who was a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Courier,
which was a famous... You told me about this
guy. A famous African -American newspaper. Yeah,
it's a good story list. Famous African -American
newspaper, very well respected. He was a basketball
player in his youth. He played on the West Virginia
State basketball team where his team went unbeaten
and included future NBA legends such as Chuck
Cooper, who was the first black NBA draftee,
and Earl Lloyd, who was the first black player
to play in the NBA. Bill Nunn declined an offer
to play for the Harlem Globetrotters to instead
go and work for the Courier. So he rose from
sports writer to managing editor. So he was a
gun basketball player. He was instrumental in
highlighting talent from historically black colleges
and universities, HBCUs, through the publication's
Black College All -America team. His unique insight
into overlooked players led to... Other teams,
not the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are his local
team, but other teams approaching him and asking
him for advice in the past. But his local team,
the Steelers, never called him in all this time.
When he eventually got asked for a meeting with
Dan Rooney, who was the son of the owner, Art
Rooney, but obviously a key figure and later
became the owner, took over from his dad. Dan
Rooney asked for a meeting and Nunn was very
blunt with him. He said, I never felt welcomed
by you all. You never showed an interest in what
I was doing in all this time. So in response
to that, Dan Rooney made him an offer, scout
for the team, and basically offered him a job.
Reluctantly, after a lot of thought and soul
-searching, Nunn did agree to that. By 1969,
he was doing the job full -time and the Steelers
had added a secret weapon. It feels like a great
example of someone who's like... You can't whinge
and then not take the chance, right? I guess
so, yeah. That doesn't excuse the Steelers for
being useless, but for ones faced with the opportunity,
I guess you can't moan about having never been
given an opportunity to scout for the team and
when they offer you the head scout job, not take
it. I think it was in all this time, I think
is the main thing. And also, and you were right
to use the word useless attributed to the Steelers.
The Steelers were useless. They had... being
a member of the NFL since 1933, and in all that
time, they'd had exactly eight winning seasons
between 1933 and 1971. There seems to be a correlation
between that upturn. They'd only made the playoffs
once in 1947 and lost immediately, never won
a playoff game. And in the, I think, 35 years
the team had been in existence, they'd got through
15 head coaches in that time. Now, I think one
of the best measures you can say of how the Steelers
changed, and as I mentioned before, six... six
Super Bowl wins they've got. So they've obviously
been successful. In the, what would it be, 55
years. So first 35 years, they went through 15
head coaches. In the 55 years since then, they've
gone through, they're on their third head coach
in that time. Which is incredible. The first
one was Chuck Knoll, who they hired in 1969.
And with obviously Dan Rooney being more forward
thinking, Chuck Knoll was a cerebral, no -nonsense,
a guy with experience with the Baltimore Colts
as well. And they said they were going to build
through the draft. They're not going to trade
for veterans. They're going to try and build
a team. And that's what they did. So using scouts
like Nunn and recruiting heavily as well from
historically black colleges and universities,
they, in the draft, got picks like Joe Green,
famously called Mean Joe Green, who was a tough,
violent, and dominant cornerstone of the team.
Mel Blount, Dwight White, Franco Harris, Jerry
Moon Mullins. These are names that will mean
a lot to certain people. They mean nothing to
me. I know. They mean something to me. I've got
a soft spot for the Steelers. In 1969, Chottnall's
first season, well, before they'd even start
building, they had a bad season. They came joint
bottom of the league. So it went to a coin toss
between them and the Bears to decide who would
get first pick. The Steelers won. So they got
the first pick in the draft and drafted one Terry
Bradshaw. I've heard of him. You've heard of
him. And four Super Bowl rings later shows why
that coin toss mattered. That's wild. Yep. So
from there, 1972, the pieces were in place and
they pulled out of it an 11 -3 record, which
was their best season ever. Made the first playoff
appearance since 1947. As I mentioned, they never
won a playoff game. They had a vicious defense,
a creative offense. The team had some swagger.
And then came December the 23rd, 1972. So it
was an AFC divisional round game between the
Steelers and the Raiders, the Oakland Raiders.
John Madden was coaching them. The legend that
is John Madden was coaching the Raiders. The
first half was a grind. It was 0 -0 at halftime.
0 -0 at halftime. The Raiders had pulled their
quarterback. The Steelers held a slight lead
late in the fourth quarter. It was 6 -0. But
then a late Raiders touchdown made it 7 -6. And
same old Steelers, the fans were saying. Same
old lovable losers. Always the bridesmaid, never
the bride. Exactly. But with the game on the
line, Bradshaw dropped back on fourth down, fired
a dart under pressure. With just seconds on the
clock, fourth down, everything on the line in
the game. He threw a pass towards his receiver,
Frenchy Cure. That's a good name. It's a good
name, yeah. Fakura? I have to be very careful
pronouncing that. Well, I don't actually. The
podcast is marked explicit for a reason. But
it came off. It is questionable who it came off
because the rules were in place that had it come
off Fakura, had it come off him, it would have
been a dead ball. But I've seen the replay enough
that I think it came off Jack Tatum, who was
the Raiders' safety. The ball sailed towards
the floor. and was about to hit the deck, which
would have ended the game. Whereas rookie fullback
Franco Harris plucked it off his shoelaces and
ran it in 50 yards into the end zone from there.
Is that the one that you call the... It's the
immaculate reception. Yeah. It's one of the most,
probably, I would say probably the most famous
play in NFL history. It is incredible, given
that everything was on the line at that moment,
given the amount he had to run, given the line
he took. He wasn't even supposed to be there.
Franco Harris was supposed to be on the other
side of the field. For some reason, it had come
over. Yeah, so incredible. Game over. Art Rooney,
who is the Steelers' owner, missed it. He was
in an elevator at the time. Really? He'd given
up on the game. What an idiot. Don't leave the
game before a full time. How many times do people
need to be told? They didn't win anything that
year. They won their playoff game. They won their
first playoff game. They lost in the AFC Championship
game. But it changed the franchise forever. It
was a sign. It was a moment of destiny. And from
1972 to 1979, they became probably the NFL's
first real dominant dynasty, winning four Super
Bowls. They drafted or developed about 10 Hall
of Famers in that time. and a team that defined
the toughness, loyalty, and blue -collar grit
of the city itself, built on a foundation of
scouting from less -than -known colleges. This
is what I'm saying, Jack. What I'm taking from
that is that, basically, if you listen to people
who are paying attention to the talents that
are out there, and you organise your... franchise,
club, whatever you want to call it, in a way
that encourages professionalism and excellence,
then you can go from the bottom to the top. That's
quite literally what you were saying at the beginning.
If you take an elite approach. Yeah. Then the
draft gives you a route back through to the top.
You get your Bradshaw as your first round pick,
albeit on a coin toss. You've been shit forever.
You've been churning out coaches. You get a guy
in who is well -known, to scout and identify
collegiate talents and then you set yourself
up with some consistency and professionalism
and your fortunes turn around. That's the whole
point of the draft, right? Crazy, isn't it? Crazy
concept. I like that. Bill Nunn was an amazing
bloke. He won six Super Bowls in the end as a
scout. He remained at... Where did he go afterwards?
No, he remained at the Steelers in this century.
Yeah. He died in 2014. He oversaw all six of
the Super Bowls. Yeah. And he was inducted into
the... Probably belatedly inducted into the Pro
Football Hall of Fame in 2021 after his death.
But, no, I mean, a deserved inductee. Yeah. That's
boss. It was boss. I'm going to break it up now
a little bit. Yeah. Because we are... I appreciate
this is going on a long time. I don't mind. I
think this is all good information. But a few
quirks of the NFL draft, a few quirky picks through
history. I'm just going to give three out because
I quite like these three. So firstly, we've got
a man named Kelvin Kirk, who is Mr. Most Irrelevant
Ever, who is the lowest draft pick ever in the
league. So we know Mr. Irrelevant is the lowest
pick. The 1976 draft had more draft picks than
any other draft in history. It used to go on
way beyond the seventh round. He was the 487th
pick of the draft, making him the most irrelevant
Mr. Irrelevant ever. He was drafted actually
by the Steelers, but he was cut by them pretty
quickly. He spent seven years playing in the
CFL in Canada, the Canadian Football League,
6 ,500 yards receiving, and later worked as an
artist for the Ottawa Citizen before his premature
death in 2003 after he had a heart attack while
playing basketball. So there you go. Most irrelevant
Mr. Irrelevant of all time. So Rosie Brown is
the next one who's kind of got the opposite story.
He was picked low. He was drafted 321st overall
in the 1953 draft by the New York Giants. But
he's one of the most notable late round draft
stories in NFL history. Not only did he make
the team, but he wanted to become one of the
most dominant linemen in the league and eventually
made his way into the Hall of Fame on 321st pick.
He was a Pro World Garden tackle for the Giants
for 13 seasons. Key player in their line for
years, known for his powerful athletic play.
Apparently he could run as quick as some running
backs, but he was built like a proverbial. Made
it into the Hall of Fame in 1975. A big boy.
Yeah, yeah. Picked in the 21st round. So as I
said, drafts used to go on a lot longer. That
was the 21st round. Yeah. And the final one I'm
going to point out is a chap called Happy Fella.
Happy Fella, who was a kicker in the NFL. It's
a good name. Who was known for his positive demeanor
and hence his nickname, Happy. He played college
football in Texas and he set school record 55
-yard field goal. He was drafted by the Eagles,
but despite a promising start, he was played
by a quadriceps injury, which limited him to
just one season with the Eagles. And he made
only six out of 20 field goals in his rookie
year and struggled later. But nevertheless, good
name. Very good name. Happy fella. There you
go. So speaking of quirky picks, I believe you've
got some lists for us. And now would be a nice
time to slot them in. I've done a lot of talking
so far. Well, that's all right. You know a lot
more about this subject than I do. And you can
feel the passion, Jack. Thank you. Yeah, no,
I mean, like, you tasked me with having a look
at some of the top... Well, having a go at picking
five... of the best players to be picked late,
basically. As in like goldmine finds, late picks
that actually did very well. And also five first
round failures, like duds. Draft busts. So where
would you like to start? Let's start with the
negative. I always like to start with a negative.
You know that about me. Well, these are in no
particular order. I'll leave it to you to determine
which of these is the worst. But the first chap
that I came up with was Ricky Williams. Yes.
Ricky Williams, to be fair, he was a very good
college player. He set the National Collegiate
Athletic Association record for rushing yards
and won the Heisman Trophy. So that's important
context when it comes to assessing how poor this
pick was. I don't think that his pick was necessarily
a bad one based on talent and statistics and
collegiate record, but it was for the way in
which it was manufactured. He was effectively
picked by the New Orleans Saints. With Mike Dichter
as head coach, the aforementioned Mike Dichter,
who you were talking about earlier. They had
had two consecutive seasons with a 6 -10 record,
so two losing seasons in a row. And leading up
to the 1999 draft, Dichter decided that he wanted
Williams to play for the Saints. At an NFL owners
meeting held two months before the draft, he
publicly stated that he would trade his entire
draft to acquire Williams. Other teams had doubts
about Williams. williams's passion for the game
and also his judgment in hiring a a chap called
master p as his agent who i think was a rapper
and entrepreneur but was not uh not a sports
agent so um so yeah anyway uh true to his word
dicta did end up drafting um williams for all
of his other draft picks in fact they went one
further than that they tried to trade all of
their picks in 1998 to acquire either at one
Peyton Manning, who turned out to be quite good,
or Ryan Leaf, who turned out not to be quite
as good. But they were rejected. And so when
it came to 1999, they decided that they wanted
to move up from their draft position. I think
they were maybe 12. But anyway, they wanted to
secure Williams. In order to do that, they traded
every single pick that they had plus two of their
first three picks for the 2000 NFL draft for
the fifth overall pick for which they used to
select Williams. That's incredible. Yeah, I mean,
to be fair, the second round pick had already
been traded to the Rams to get Eddie Kennison.
But this was the first time one player was the
only draft pick. for an NFL team that's incredible
it's never been done before or since and it really
paid off because the Saints struggled to a 3
-13 season in 1999 The second worst in the franchise's
history. And Dictor was understandably fired.
Yes. Williams played three seasons for the Saints
before he was traded to the Miami Dolphins where
he proceeded to fail three drugs tests before
retiring in 2004. He briefly returned but had
another anti -daping violation. Played one season
in Canada before retiring for good and never
being heard of again. So, yeah, whilst you might
understand why someone would have drafted Williams,
I'm not sure I would have done so in such circumstances.
I mean, Williams is obviously almost certainly
a big contributor to this, but the league generally
has moved very far away from using high draft
picks on running backs because they are so volatile,
because they get hit so hard so often that they
are prone to injuries, as well as, obviously...
There's not always a direct... Speed and space
in the open can get you a long way in college.
Not necessarily always the case in the professional
game. So maybe don't use nine draft picks. Yeah,
that is... Actually, I'd heard of Ricky Williams.
I did not know they went in that big for him.
That is bad. Yeah, that's bad, yeah. So I've
given you one from a trade perspective. Now I've
got one from an age perspective. So number two
candidate is Brandon Whedon. Whedon was selected
by the Cleveland Browns as the 22nd pick in the
2012 draft. He became the oldest player ever
to be taken in the first round. He was 28 years
old. Impressive. So two years before the same...
So he was picked two years before the Browns
would then go on to pick Johnny Manziel. So that
would give you an indication as to how well it
went for Whedon. In his first game, he threw
four interceptions and had a passer rating of
5 .1. Oof. Which is low. It's not good. So again,
to explain passer rating, call it a score out
of... 153, I think it is. 153 is the maximum.
So call it a score out of that. So five is bad.
Let's just say we're getting to the point now
where we're going to get some quarterbacks retiring
for the first time with a score over 100. And
that is Aaron Rodgers. And that is just insanely
good for an entire career. Unless he wrecked
that by spending two years at the Jets, obviously.
But yeah, so 100 is considered extremely good
anywhere in the 90s. and you've probably had
quite a good career. Yeah, well, he didn't. No.
During his time with the Browns, he only had
a 55 % completion rate. He threw more interceptions
than touchdowns. That's a record he would barely
improve throughout his career. I think he finished
with 31 touchdowns and 30 interceptions. Solid.
From 25 starts and 35 games. But that also included
75 sacks for 452 yards. Yeah, and this is sort
of the problem. Obviously, I'm not going to defend
him or say he was high quality necessarily compared
to the average. Or offensive line, rather. Also,
if you've got no offensive line, there's only
so much you can do as a quarterback. Yeah, exactly.
You've got no protection. Well, he basically
got sacked for a 14th of what he threw for. Yeah.
In his career. That'll do you. Including 15 fumbles.
Yeah, it was inevitable. He survived six years,
mainly as a backup at the Titans, Texans and
Cowboys. But to his credit, because I've gone
in a little bit here on Mr. Whedon, perhaps unprovoked
and unnecessarily so, he was originally a baseball
player, although he never made it to the bigs.
I was going to say, there's normally a couple
of reasons why someone would be drafted at that
age. They've either tried another sport or they've
been in the army. There's often another one as
well. Or the armed forces, I should say. And
then gone to college. Yeah, so he was drafted
by the Yankees. but traded multiple times, never
made it to the bigs, then went back to college,
played football. I mean, that's interesting.
Yeah, definitely interesting. Fair play, actually.
He was basically above average at both baseball
and American football, but not that good at either.
Well, if you're comparing it to NFL standards
and baseball standards. Professional -wise, yeah.
I mean, he dabbled. He certainly dabbled. He
was a sportsman. He just wasn't... He didn't
excel in either. Nice. So, yeah. So, you've got
one for age. You've got one for trading, and
then you've got one for mindlessness. I don't
know. I don't understand how to explain this
better. But Bo Jackson. Oh, yeah. Bo Jackson,
a month before the 1986 NFL draft, a Tampa Bay
Buccaneers owner, an Alabama Illuminae, Hugh
Culverhouse took Bo. on a private jet to visit
the team and to get a physical during his senior
baseball season. And Jackson was told by the
Buccaneers that the trip had been cleared by
the NCAA and the SEC, but it hadn't been. And
yeah, the SEC barred athletes from being professional
in one sport and amateur in another. So he was
declared ineligible near the tail end of his
senior baseball season. And Jackson told ESPN
that he long believed that the Buccaneers had
deliberately tried to sabotage his collegiate
baseball career because of the season he was
having. And he was so angry at the Buccaneers'
actions that he vowed never to play for them,
going on to tell Culverhouse, if you draft me
if you want, so you can draft me if you want,
but you're going to be wasting a draft pick.
I can promise you that. So he made that very
clear. And then what did the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
go and do? Did they draft him? Not only did they
draft him, they selected him with the first overall
pick of the 1986 draft. Impressive. And he, though,
true to his word, refused to play for them. He
said that he believed that the failure to obtain
the NCAA approval was deliberate. They were trying
to get him to play football instead of baseball.
I think Jackson's collegiate baseball coach,
who was a chap called Hal... Baird is on record
as saying that no one from either camp had mentioned
the trip to him, but he feared the worst when
Jackson told him the trip had been paid for.
Baird maintained that had he known about the
trip, he would have told Jackson about the rule
that barred him from playing professional football
while being an amateur baseballer. But anyway,
Jackson turned down a $7 .6 million five -year
contract in favor of a $1 million three -year
contract with the Kansas City Royals. And the
Buccaneers forfeited his rights before the 1987
draft. That's the Kansas City Royals baseball.
I should mention Bo Jackson. We were talking
about that chat before, who was quite good at
two sports. Bo Jackson was exceptionally good
at two sports. And that is how this story ends.
Was not that enamored by playing football after
his experience in 86. So rather than attend the
87 draft, he went to sleep. Found out in the
morning that he'd been drafted in the seventh
round. 183rd overall by the Los Angeles Raiders.
Al Davis. Yeah. Who by then were the Los Angeles
Raiders. Before becoming the Oakland Raiders
again and now being the Las Vegas Raiders. Yeah.
I'm being a bit unfair here, I think, on one
Gabriel Riviera. You're not, though, because
I know why. But you go ahead. By comparison,
shall we say. This is coming from the perspective
of a bust because of the conduct of the player
himself. The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Riviera
in the first round, 21st pick overall of the
1983 draft. Riviera's selection was notable because
the Steelers decided to pass on hometown hero,
University of Pittsburgh quarterback Dan Marino.
So that was their first mistake. And having played
just six games. for the Steelers on October the
20th 1983 Riviera was paralyzed in a car wreck
and so you're probably immediately balking at
why I'm having a go at Gabriel Riviera because
that seems like a horrible turn of fate for him
but he was drink driving and he crossed into
the path of another vehicle whom he collided
with and suffered very severe injuries paralyzed
himself from the chest down Never played again,
obviously, in his career, ended there and then.
So, yeah, really, I think that's more notable,
less so for Riviera's decision to drink drive
and end his own career prematurely and more for
the fact that the Steelers overlooked Dan Marino.
And then the final one I had for you, Jack, for
you to pick from was Jamarcus Russell. Yeah,
I did assume this was going to be the last one.
Jamarcus Russell is being picked for performance
reasons. So that's the motivation behind his
selection in the top five busts. So Russell selected
first overall by the Raiders in 2007. He was
very inconsistent. There was questions over his
professionalism and his work ethic. And to illustrate
that or underline that point, he was released
by Oakland in 2010, so three years later. And
he attempted numerous times to re -enter the
league with another team, but he was never given
another opportunity. And I think a couple of
people had tried to warn the Raiders off signing
him. The former Detroit Lions general manager
and Raiders linebacker Matt Millen said in 2015
that he had warned the Raiders owner Al Davis
not to draft Russell because he had been removed
from a pre -draft interview for being overly
distracted and not paying attention or basically
not taking it seriously, I think. And the Raiders
head coach himself, Lane Kiffin, also stated
that he didn't want to draft Russell and preferred...
the future pro football hall of famer wide receiver
calvin johnson uh who would have been a bad choice
yeah to say and after firing him in 2008 al davis
acknowledged that kiffin had opposed drafting
russell but um justified his selection because
he said that kiffin was indecisive towards his
preferred pick um but it started pretty badly
for russell uh After failing to reach a contract
agreement with the Raiders, he held out through
the training camp and into the first week of
the 2007 NFL season. And then he eventually signed
a six -year contract worth 68 million with 31
.5 million guaranteed. So he did quite well in
that sense. Raiders head coach didn't immediately
then pick him because he hadn't been in practice,
which I think is understandable. And then by
2010, he was described as annually and incredibly
overweight. Everything you can possibly have
contributing to what not to do as an NFL player,
especially a quarterback. I think he also had
some off -field indiscretions of which I'm not
familiar with the particulars. They released
him when they traded for Jason Campbell from
the then Washington Redskins. He's often considered
one of the greatest NFL draft busts. He finished
his career with a passer rating of 65 .2. Terrible.
His first year was 50. And yeah, he threw 18
touchdowns in his career, but was intercepted
23 times. He fumbled 25 times. So being a quarterback,
obviously everyone needs to study the playbooks,
needs to study game film to try and gain advantage
over your opponents. So they'll give players
game film to go back and watch overnight. It's
basically homework to do. And they were so convinced
that... that Jamarcus Russell wasn't watching
the game film. That one day they sent him home
with blank tapes and asked him the next day,
oh, did you watch the film? He's like, oh yeah,
it's really good. Yeah, it's great. That's amazing.
It's just like everything that can go into making
a, yeah, what not to do as a first round, first
overall pick. Jamarcus Russell, ladies and gentlemen.
Incredible stuff. Yeah, I think to wrap this
up, his tenure was so bad that for several years
after he He played in the NFL. Nobody at the
franchise would wear his number at the Raiders,
which was the number two. I don't think that
didn't last forever. Someone ended up taking
it. The opposite of a retired number. Yeah, exactly.
Voluntarily rejected. A shunned number, yeah.
So yeah, out of those, you make of that what
you will. Do you want me to pick one? Because
I'm picking Jamarcus Russell. The other one,
there's factors at play. There's no excuse whatsoever.
A, for the Raiders to have drafted him. They
should have known better. And B, for him himself
to not take that opportunity. Oh, that's incredible.
And Al Davis should have known better. I would
probably put the Tampa Bay in there as well because
they were literally told, don't pick me. I won't
play for you. Yeah. Oh, yeah, fair enough. At
least he was a good player, though, Bo. Yeah.
Although he had a much better baseball career.
Do you want to hear the top five late picks?
I do want to hear the top five late picks. These
are possibly in order, so I'll do them in reverse.
In fifth, this is a little bit controversial.
You mentioned him, actually, when we were chatting
about this the other day, but I picked Jason
Kelsey. Yes, I think he's brilliant. Yeah, brilliant
pick. Because he was selected by the Philadelphia
Eagles in the sixth round, 191st overall in 2011.
He's a center. And he didn't miss a start from
2014 until the end of his career. A franchise
record 159 consecutive starts. He also won a
Super Bowl, Super Bowl 52 in 2018 against the
Patriots. One of my favourite Super Bowl ever.
And made a second Super Bowl final, Super Bowl
57 in 2023, losing to his brother against the
Chiefs. Slightly more famous brother. Yeah. Slightly
more famous girlfriend. Yeah, slightly more famous
girlfriend indeed. Taylor Swift, for those who
don't know. I mean, yeah, he basically made six
first -team All -Pros, seven Pro Bowls. But the
thing I really love about him is he had a 13
-year career and was a one -club man. He was
an ever -present... And they love him. Yeah.
They love him. We're in a city that has extremely
passionate sports fans, shall we say. Yeah. as
we saw the other day watching The Turnaround.
If you haven't seen The Turnaround documentary
on Netflix, please watch that. It's a baseball
documentary, but it is one of the most wonderful
pieces of short film making I've ever seen. Yes,
very good, isn't it? But yes, Philly fans are
mad. Sports mad city. So to endear yourself to
them is no mean feat. So who's I go second? I
think I went Shannon, sorry, second, fourth.
I went Shannon Sharp. Ah, yes. I like this one
because he played Division 2 college football,
which undermined people's perceptions of him.
And he was also considered too big to be a receiver
and too small to be a tight end. What? Yeah,
Scouts don't know anything. In that in -between
zone. No, exactly. He was eventually selected
in the seventh round with the 92nd pick by Denver.
192nd. 190 seconds, sorry. What did I say? 90
seconds. We've got to say seventh round would
be deeper than that. 190 seconds. His first two
years were very underwhelming because he was
picked as a receiver, but then they converted
him to a tight end and sort of the rest is history
really. He remained with Denver until 1999. He
won two championship rings, so two Super Bowls
that is, and then after a two -year stint with
the Baltimore Ravens where he won another championship
ring. Oh, yeah. who returned to the Broncos.
And he played there until 2003. And he's regarded
as one of the greatest tight ends of all time.
That's a great shout, that is. I really like
that one. Yeah, he ranks third in tight end receptions,
receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. It
was also the first NFL tight end to amass over
10 ,000 receiving yards. It's a Hall of Famer,
2011. Very nice. So Shannon Sharp. I did have
these the other way around, but I'm going to
switch them. So second, I put... Sorry, not second.
I'm getting these wrong. It's fine. They're just
numbers. Third. Richard Sherman. Yes. Yeah. Seattle
Seahawks selecting Sherman in the fifth round,
154th overall. Yeah. The 2011 draft. Sherman
was the 25th cornerback drafted. And whilst watching
the draft... at home with his family Sherman
was livid about the players who he perceived
as inferior to him getting drafted before him
and if anybody's ever seen any clips of Richard
Sherman or heard any interviews with him he is
not short on confidence he is a very intelligent
man famously intelligent man very capable of
using his words During his time at the Seahawks,
Sherman was part of the Legion of Boom, which
is one of the great monikers. I love that. The
defensive unit at the Seahawks. A secondary,
as they say, that led the NFL in pass defense
in 2013 and 14. His unit, the Legion of Boom,
helped the Seahawks win the Super Bowl. They
won 43 -8 over Denver, which is... well matched
the third largest margin of victory in the history
of the Superbowl. Should have won two Superbowls.
Seahawks. Yeah. They blew that one against the
Patriots where they decided to throw from the
one yard line. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was
wild. Yeah. Yeah. And that would, you were, in
fact, I didn't know that was the game, but I
did say the Seahawks made the Superbowl the following
season. I lost a very close game to the Patriots,
but that is the circumstances. Yeah, after playing
for the Seahawks, he went to the 49ers for three
seasons. He made another Super Bowl appearance
there, which is the one with Brock, I think.
Or maybe that's a bit earlier. I don't know.
You might know. Where was that? Sorry. Sherman
went to the 49ers and made another Super Bowl
appearance. No, it would have been earlier than
that. Yeah. But anyway, he's really good. It
would have been the first time Mahomes won it.
Oh, nice. Yeah, they beat the 49ers, I think.
Yeah, but he's... He was the NFL Interceptions
leader in 2013. He's just basically one of the
greatest cornerbacks full -time. Yes. Great call.
Magnificent call. I'm very interested to see
how they go from here, actually, if that's number
three. I can't actually... I know who number
one is, but I can't think who number two is right
now. So number two, I pick Joe Montana. Oh, yes,
of course. Yeah, yeah. So I'd like... He wasn't
really rated by many scouts. We'll come to our
opinions on scouts, I'm sure. He was very good
at college, but they just didn't rate him. And
then in the 79 draft, San Francisco 49ers selected
him at the end of the third round of the 82nd
pick. He was the fourth quarterback taken behind
Phil Simms, Steve Fuller, and some chap called
Thompson, whose first name I can't remember.
Yeah, and I think the thing that I really liked
about Montana is he recovered from a career -threatening
injury in his back. He had a spinal disc injury,
but he went on to become, well, he is widely
regarded as one of the greatest quarterbacks
of all time. He won two Super Bowls before his
injury and then perhaps more impressively two
after, which is why I also think he's number
two. Basically. And he was the first player to
be named the Super Bowl MVP three times. Two
of those were won after his injury. He holds
the Super Bowl career record for most passes
without an interception. 122 in four games. Impressive.
And has an all -time highest passer rating of
127 .8, I think, in the Super Bowl. And yeah,
1993 he was traded to Kansas City Chiefs. where
he played for the last two seasons and led the
franchise to its first AFC Championship game.
And he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in
2000. So that's Joe Montana. And probably considered
the greatest quarterback of all time by a lot
of people. Until? Until. Number one. Number one.
Any guesses? I think there's probably people
who don't know a whole lot about American football
who could probably have a pretty good guess about
that one. But put us out of our misery, Ben.
Thomas Brady. There we go. I don't actually know
if his first name is Thomas, but I full -named
him. I bet he's got a couple of middle names
as well. He looks the type. Thomas Edward Patrick
Brady Jr. There we go. There we are. Perfect.
Selected in the sixth round, which is absolutely
disgusting. I mean, yes. But also, have you seen
some of his footage of the NFL Combine? So the
Combine, I should say, I haven't really mentioned
this yet, is they have like a day where they
do put rookies through a lot of drills and see
how fast they can run, see how agile they are,
see how the throwing is and stuff. And if you
look at videos of Tom Brady from there, A, he
was slow. He was incredibly slow. He never got
that much quicker during his career. But also,
he looked like a lanky dweeb. Like, I can see
why he was drafted low. That's what even Mr.
Croft said. Yeah. Yeah, so Robert Kraft, who's
the owner of the Patriots, he said when he first
met Brady, I think this is true anyway, he said
that he had this image of Tom Brady coming down
the old Foxborough Stadium steps with a pizza
box under his arm, and he described him as a
skinny beanpole. And when he introduced himself
to me, he said, Hi, Mr. Kraft. And he was about
to say who he was, but I said, I know who you
are. You're Tom Brady. You're our sixth round
draft choice. And Kraft recalled Brady responding,
he looked at me dead in the eye and said, I'm
the best decision this organization has ever
made. Correct. Very correct. The thing that's
really insane about it is he was picked 199th
overall, sixth round of the 2000 draft, using
a compensatory pick that the Patriots earned
due to the loss of punter Tom Tooper to free
agency in 1999. I didn't know that. He and his
family, so Brady and his family, believed he'd
be drafted in the second or third round. And
they were watching the draft on TV. And six other
quarterbacks were drafted before him. And Brady
was so embarrassed, he says he briefly left his
family home during the sixth round and cried
when recalling the experience. He basically said
that when the Patriots notified him that he was
being drafted, he was grateful not to have to
become an insurance salesman. Incredible. Yeah.
Even the Patriots. It might be the case that
if they hadn't, he might have had to. It's not
even the fact that he was picked that is incredible.
It was how he then became the Patriots starter.
It was because they were playing the Jets in
2001. A couple of weeks after 9 -11, I think
maybe the first round of fixtures that went back
on after, obviously they were all cancelled after
that for obvious reasons. But they were playing
the Jets and Mo Lewis, who was the Jets linebacker,
level Drew Bledsoe, who was the Patriots quarterback,
with a good hit. We'll call it a good hit. It
was such a good hit that Bledsoe was rushed to
hospital. It was discovered that Lewis's hit
had sheared a blood vessel in his chest. Jesus
Christ. Which had him bleeding out internally,
a pint of blood every hour. Whoa. So, A. Thank
God he got the attention he needed there. But
being meant that Tom Brady had to come in as
the starter from then on out. And Bledsoe would
never regain his place because Tom Brady led
the Patriots to a Super Bowl and they won it.
Incredible. It's a staggering story. It's one
of those stories that simply, I mean, it has
so many pieces that need to come together. But
then, Tom Brady obviously goes on to win seven
Super Bowls in the end, six for the Patriots,
hence best decision you ever made, correct? And
obviously one for the Buccaneers as well, before
signing a ridiculously large contract to be a
broadcaster. Am I a Brazilian supermodel? Yeah.
So the Patriots, that Super Bowl that year, against
the St. Louis Rams, as they were then, now the
Los Angeles Rams, formerly the Cleveland Rams.
They were favourites by 14 points. Why are they
ahead? I think, was that the year they were the
greatest show on turf, they were called? That's
a cool name. Which is a great name. Kurt Warner.
Kurt Warner's incredible. I can't mention Kurt
Warner in this episode because he was undrafted.
That's wild. If it wasn't for the fact this is
the lowest draft picks ever, you'd probably have
Kurt Warner at number two on this list. He was
undrafted, came in, led... Led a Super Bowl win
for the Rams and then obviously led them back
to the Super Bowl here. Great show on turf offense.
But yeah, Brady. You said you can't mention Kurt
Warner, but you got him in. Yeah, I got him in.
There's been a lot of films about him. He's a
strange guy, but I like him. Kind of likable.
But yeah, and Brady kept his cool in a difficult
situation. Drove them forward and after the Rams
had pulled them, the Patriots had a lead. Rams
pulled it back to level. Brady kept his cool,
drove them forward. I think the field goal went
over as time elapsed to win it. Good Super Bowl.
That is a good Super Bowl. I don't know how to
put Brady's accolades into a succinct summary.
Here's the GOAT. Let me try. Seven Super Bowls,
you said. Three and four years between 2002 and
2004. He also lost in 2008, 2012, and 2017. Usually
against the Manning. Yeah, and they're quite
good. Won three and five between 2015 and 2019.
Then again in 2021 with the Bucks, where he beat
Mahomes. He's a five -time Super Bowl MVP. He's
a three -time NFL MVP just this regular season.
In 23 seasons, he made 10 Super Bowls, seven
wins, and another four conference finals, which
means that half of his seasons made conference
finals. Yeah. Played till he was 45, NFL passing
leader for yards, for completions, for touchdowns.
It's insane. He wasn't wrong when he said that
to Robert Kraft. Yeah, he wasn't wrong. And the
thing that's really crazy is even the Patriots
nearly didn't pick him. They were deciding between
Brady and a guy called Tim Ratte, who was later
entered the league as the seventh round pick
or 212th overall for the 49ers. And Ratte would
go on to make 18 starts over eight years, accruing
63 sacks. Yeah, but I mean, at that point, you're
picking backup quarterbacks. They didn't pick
him round six and thinking this guy's going to
win us some Super Bowls. let alone six. Six.
Incredible. It is an incredible story. And like
him, I hate him because I know he's got his detractors
as well. Yeah. Deflategate. It's an incredible
story. Yeah. Yeah. A story for another day, perhaps.
I mean, we're putting the hours into this one.
I'm not sure we've got time for much else. No,
I know. But yeah, those are my five, man. I mean,
you're not going to disagree with Brady. No one's
going to disagree with Brady unless they've lost
their minds. No. But yeah. I think the draft
is one of the coolest things. And I think for
me, what it serves to demonstrate is at least
those, I know it's a very small sample size,
only picking five, but what it serves to demonstrate
to a certain extent is that the scouts don't
know what they're doing. I think to a certain
extent, yeah. I mean, I actually, I graphed this
out and I might put some of the graphs up on
our blue sky or somewhere. Yeah, you should.
Because they're quite interesting. They're very
interesting. Yeah. You get outliers. And there
is certainly a trend towards performance early
in pick. Obviously, Brady's a massive outlier.
You get other players who are outliers, many
of whom you've mentioned, who do well despite
a low draft pick. Generally, a lot of the times
when you're drafting, it is fairly obvious a
player's going to do well if you draft them in
the first round. It's no big shock. And it could
be the case that you end up with players like
Patrick Mahomes, who went, I think, 15th pick
or something like that. Aaron Rodgers went 32nd
pick. who obviously end up being great players
who get picked low in the first round. Jerry
Rice, I think he was about 16th pick, best receiver
of all time. But at least these guys are going
first round. At least they're going first round.
I mean, the outliers are rare and you can call
them exceptions, but it's more, honestly, the
amount of duds that get picked early on. Players
like Jamarcus Russell, who despite being warned,
despite Al Davis had 50 years of experience behind
him. more than that 60 years of experience 60
-70 years of experience behind him to make that
decision and has made a foolish decision obviously
with I'm guessing the backing of his scouting
team or wherever else but it's it's incredible
that you look at someone like Tom Brady and you
think in hindsight why was he overlooked he was
overlooked because he looked like he did and
because he didn't look like the type he didn't
look like he had the muscle mass or the speed
or anything like that to make up for it but the
important thing is and always has been his brain
his ability to stay calm under pressure and it
is obviously hard to quantify that sometimes
compared to speed compared to passing arm or
wherever else but like I just find I find there's
some insane decisions that yes we're looking
at the benefit of hindsight but even at the time
how do you come to that decision trade all your
draft picks for one running back or two go for
someone who everyone's warning you against like
that but we're also looking at the benefit of
hindsight from the perspective of an amateur
mate I'm not watching collegiate football week
in week out I'm not accruing all the statistical
data like and I'm not saying I would do better
personally because that's an absurd claim but
what I'm saying is that if you hold yourself
out to be a scout like and your profession is
the identification of talent you would think
that there would be a a greater hit rate. Yeah.
I think it just serves to illustrate that when
someone is 20, 21 years old or in other sports
younger, you have no idea if they're going to
be good or not. Yeah. With the very except like
with few exceptions, like where someone is genuinely
like freakishly talented. Yeah. Beyond their,
beyond their developmental years. But yeah, most
of the time you're guessing. It is a lot of guesswork.
And even when you look at some of the top players
from this year's draft, we've already mentioned
Travis Hunter, who's a chap who can play wide
receiver and cornerback. That's fun. As fun as
it sounds, and as fun as it is, the reckoning
is he's probably going to get drafted by the
Browns, number two overall, because I think the
Titans will go for quarterback, probably Cam
Ward, maybe Shadow Sanders. But yeah, Travis
Hunter, he ends up at the Browns. Are they going
to play him cornerback and wide receiver? I'd
be very interested to see what they end up doing.
Because he'll end up getting specialised. He'll
end up getting made into another piece of the
jigsaw. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope
he doesn't. He is insisting upon being considered
a two -way player. You just don't get two -way
players in the NFL. And you get occasional ones,
like sometimes Gronkowski used to play in defence
for the Patriots. He'd go in as a safety or whatever.
Sometimes, obviously. You've got players who've
played a bit of wide receiving when they were
cornerback, like Deion Sanders. Yeah. That'd
be fun. Deion Sanders, who was Travis Hunter's
coach at Colorado Buffaloes. Yeah, so. Oh, that's
boss. I'm excited about this year's draw. I'm
excited to see where the pieces fall. I did have
a bit more to go through in this, some of the
more modern stuff. I was going to talk about
Andrew Luck. I was going to talk about... Peyton
Manning a little bit, but I think we can save
a few things for another day. We have gone quite
long here. We'll be doing the Super Bowl as well.
Absolutely, of course we'll be doing the Super
Bowl. Might even do one for the playoffs as well.
Yeah, I think that just about covers it. I think
that comfortably covers it. So this year, the
first pick, as I mentioned, is Tennessee Titans,
then Cleveland Browns. The Jets are set to go,
I think, seven for overall this year, which is...
we've been higher but uh yeah the jets uh i think
now's the time i'm i'm i'm moderately well this
is the thing this is what the draft does and
this is what uh football does particularly well
the nfl does particularly well i am excited about
next season the jets fan notwithstanding the
fact i've been excited about the past few years
it tricks you every time and it then it it builds
you up for disappointment afterwards but um seven
for overall pick Get ourselves a nice big lineman
probably and go from there. See where it takes
you. Yeah. I think that is the beauty of it.
Everybody gets a start fresh. Everybody gets
excited. Dirts have just picked up Justin Fields,
the quarterback. QB. Yeah. He had a difficult
first few seasons, but he also had a terrible
O -line as well. Probably had a few things that
weren't necessarily going for him at Chicago,
so we'll see how he goes. Anyway, I'm digressing
now. Well, you know, it's something to look forward
to. And do you know where we can see it? Yeah,
so if you're in the UK, it will be on Sky Sports,
Sky Sports NFL specifically. If you're in the
United States, I'm going to assume it will be
everywhere. I don't think I'll have to tell you
where to watch it if you're over there. Also,
I don't know. Everywhere. It is taking place,
yeah. You will know who has been picked number
one for sure. It's at Lambeau Field in Green
Bay, Wisconsin from Thursday the 24th of April
for the first round and later rounds Friday and
Saturday up to the 26th of April. Nice. I can't
wait. So, yeah. Well, that's the NFL draft. Yes.
Yes, it is. comprehensively covered in just two
hours yeah if you managed to stick that out with
us um thank you yeah very well done um hopefully
it was reasonably informative and would have
i think we covered all bases yeah giving you
an insight into stuff that perhaps you didn't
know before um where are we where are we going
where are we going the week after then next week
where are we going next week so next week staying
stateside we are staying well somewhat stateside
actually we're gonna go we're kind of splitting
our um Oh, no, wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.
You are getting ahead of yourself. I am getting
ahead of myself. We are definitely staying safe
next week because I'm extremely excited by this
one as well. I'm going to have to force myself
to pronounce it properly as in the American way
because I really want to say the Kentucky Derby.
I believe it's the Kentucky Derby. So I'm going
to have to pronounce it like that. The subtleties.
I might be wrong, but that certainly seems to
be how it's pronounced. The Kentucky Derby from
Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, which
is another horse race. A lot of history. A very
famous horse race. Yes. On the 3rd of May. Cool.
Can't wait. That should be fun. If you like horse
racing or you liked our national episode, come
back. Yeah. As many stories about the Derby as
there is about the national. A lot of history,
a lot of controversy, a lot of stolen horses,
drugged horses, everything in between. So it'll
be a good one. Yeah. Nice. Shall we leave it
there? I think so. It's good having you over,
Ben. Yeah, thanks. We're off to York City in
a second, so. We are off to York City in a second.
And I've enjoyed doing this podcast in person
with a fat rascal from Betty's in York and a
cup of tea. A very traditional English morning.
Two cups of tea. Two cups of tea. Because it
lasted so long. Anyway. Nice. If you stopped
by us, thank you very much. And we'll see you
next week in Kentucky. Yep. Bye -bye. Bye, guys.
Once again, thank you for listening to the Sporting
Almanac podcast. I appreciate it, especially
this week as it was a very long episode. If you
enjoyed it, give us a like, a subscribe or a
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Our theme tune is Oh Yeah by Harmonia Productions.
You can find us on Blue Sky at at the Sporting
Almanac or drop us an email at the Sporting Almanac
podcast at gmail .com. Good luck to everyone
running the London Marathon this weekend. I'll
be there cheering you on. We'll be back next
week. And until then, stay curious. Sport is
nothing without the stories that make it. Goodbye.