7 DRAFT DAYS - DAY 2 - BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DRAFT
This is not a concise or detailed history of the NFL Draft, that could probably take up a few volumes of books, rather this is a glance at the past.
The Day 2 post is inspired by a few GM's in the BFFL who have either only recently been pulled into the college game or who have not experienced this particular side of football.
The college game is a lifeline to the NFL Draft and NFL in general and so it makes sense to at least have a little insight on how this draft process all came to fruition to the frenzied event we all know and love.
Welcome to Day 2 - A Brief History Of The Draft
Before we dive into the humble beginnings, let us have a look at some of those players who went in the first round of the NFL Draft in recent times, with this entertaining video.
Prior to the process we are all now familiar with, players could hold out for the best offer to play. It was a case of strong teams getting stronger and with the growing disparity, something had to change.
This is what happened with Stan Kostka, a running back from the University of Minnesota in the 1934 season.
He was in high demand and literally every NFL team clambered for his signature. Kostka stalled and decided to wait for the best offer. This took nine months, after which he became the league's highest paid player. Stan Kostka signed a $5,000 contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1935. Brooklyn finished second in the NFL East that season. Due to the bidding war which took place between the teams for Kostka, the NFL devised the draft.
The first draft took place at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Philadelphia on 8th February 1936. The teams chose from a total of 90 players. In these early days teams did not have scouts, agents were not even a 'thing' and there was no media coverage. The list of players assembled for the draft came from newspaper reports, visits to local colleges and recommendations from coaches.
A far cry from the glitz and glamour of the draft we know today, the 1936 draft had a chalkboard, set up in a room, where two men wrote the names of the players involved.
"With the first pick of the 1936 NFL Draft, the Philadelphia Eagles select Jay Berwanger, Half-Back, University of Chicago."
The Eagles believed they could not meet his pay demands of $1,000 per game and traded his rights to the Chicago Bears, in exchange for tackle Art Buss.
Berwanger initially chose not to sign for the Bears as he wanted to remain 'amateur' to concentrate on qualifying for the Olympics, but after this did not happen he spoke to them.
The negotiations did not quite go according to plan. The Bears offered a salary of $13,500 and Berwanger wanted $15,000. No deal was reached and the number one pick in the first ever draft took a job at a rubber company in Chicago whilst coaching part-time.
Jay Berwanger never played a game in the NFL. He was not the only player, as only 24 of the 81 selected players chose to play in the NFL that year.
Another person to emerge from this draft who could shape how teams drafted in future years was Wellington Mara. He was the co-owner of the New York Giants and subscribed to magazines and newspapers from other towns and cities so he had game reports on players from college. This was a kind of forerunner to 'scouting'.
Mara was put in charge of drafting for the Giants for the 1939 draft and selected fullback Walt Nielsen in the first round which surprised all the teams in the league including his own as Nielsen's name did not appear on the draft list.
Teams, such as the Giants, would submit a list of players to be put into the draft pool and any team could choose any player from this list. Nielsen was not on this list and Mara was quoted as commenting after the pick - "I didn't think I said I put every name on the list."
There were nine rounds in the 1936 draft, but by 1943 it was expanded to 30 rounds. The reason for this was because it was assumed that most players would be called into combat during World War Two. During this period the draft was known as the 'preferred negotiation list'.
It was in 1946 that Eddie Kotal became the first scout for the LA Rams, until this time scouts were really not part of a teams office. That same year Washington selected UCLA running back Cal Rossi, only to discover he was a junior and therefore ineligible to be drafted under the rules. Washington returned the following year to draft Rossi again and yet again they were out of luck as the player informed them he had no interest in playing professional football.
In the 1947 draft, due to the NFL rivalry with the AAFC, a bonus pick was introduced. Each year a team was selected via a lottery draw to receive a bonus pick at the top of the draft, they would then give up a last round pick.
George Taliaferro became the first African-American to be drafted in the 1949 NFL Draft, but signed with the LA Dons in the AAFC instead. Kenny Washington, regarded as one of the greatest college players of all-time, should have been the first African-American drafted in 1940 but George Halas, the owner of the Chicago Bears who wanted to draft him, was unable to convince the league to permit integration.
In 1956 the first three rounds of the the draft were held on 29th November 1955 following the Army-Navy game. This was to keep the top college players from signing with teams in the Canadian Football League. The remaining rounds were held in January. The NFL increased this 'early draft' to four rounds being held from 1957 until 1959.
From 1960 until 1966 the AFL held its own draft. It was a fierce battle between the AFL and NFL as to which players were drafted to a particular league. A case in point is quarterback Billy Cannon who the Houston Oilers signed from under the noses of the Rams and this culminated in a lengthy court battle. Cannon eventually signed with the Oilers.
Both drafts were held secretly. Stories emerged of teams hiding players away by locking them in hotel rooms so the other league could not contact them and even 'kidnapping' players so teams from the rival leagues were unable to coerce them into joining their franchise
The AFL/NFL merger in 1967 would put a stop to this and it was around this era time limits on picks was put in place.
In relation to 'time limits' on picks, one story from the 1964 draft was the Dallas Cowboys decision to take cornerback Mel Renfro. At this point in time, there was no time limit on picks.
The Cowboys GM, Tex Schramm decided that Renfro was his player but had concerns about his knees. Schramm called a doctor in Oregon via a pay-phone to examine Renfro. This examination and reporting back took six hours and all the other teams just had to wait. The Cowboys eventually took their man at pick number 17 in the second round. It was decided that a time limit would need to be put in place.
Technology too would see an increase from the early 1960s with the emergence of computers, but in those days the cost of running these systems was so high it was way too expensive for a team to have one. It was in 1963 when three teams decided to pool their scouting resources to overcome this issue.
The Detroit Lions, Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers formed LESTO (Lions Eagles Steelers Talent Organisation) which would later be re-titled BLESTO when the Chicago Bears joined the network. Over the years the network was joined by the Vikings, Bills, Dolphins and Colts and went through various name changes such as BLESTO-V and BLESTO-VIII.
BLESTO still exists, although the Bears and Eagles are now no longer part of the organisation.
Another scouting network was set up in 1964, CEPO (Central Eastern Personnel Organisation), formed by the Colts, Browns, Packers and Cardinals and was changed to 'United Scouting' after they were joined by the Falcons, Giants and Washington. United Scouting changed its name to "The National" in 1983 and still exists to this day.
The network 'Troika' was also launched in 1964 consisting of the Cowboys, Rams and the 49ers, this was when it was renamed Quadra in 1967 when the Saints joined. Quadra no longer exists.
In 1977 the draft was reduced to 12 rounds and moved to the spring. It was also in 1977 that BLESTO and services such as Quadra and The National organised the first scouting combines with BLESTO and The National still involved in the running of the events to this day.
As of 2015 18 franchises participated in The National, eight participated in BLESTO with six non-affiliated teams who ran their own in-house scouting staffs (Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and New England).
In 1994 the draft was reduced further to seven rounds and the format we are familiar with to this day.
The 1990s also saw the introduction of the Jimmy Johnson 'trade value chart' which quantified the value of each pick. Teams in the high-tech world of today still use that same, varied system, be it a very much updated version with the technology now available.
From its early beginnings in 1936, right through to the 1970s, the draft did not have any live television coverage as an event.
This all changed when a new network, ESPN, requested permission from the League Commissioner at the time, Pete Rozelle, to televise the 1980 draft. He had his doubts, but he wanted to champion the idea, against the advice of others involved in the league.
Commissioner Rozelle saw the potential in the ESPN idea, giving instructions that the 1980 NFL Draft could be covered as a news event by ESPN.
The live television coverage of the NFL Draft was born.
Now, the draft is not only high value stakes for both teams and players, but for networks, media and podcasts worldwide. It is the talk of social media in the months and weeks after the Super Bowl, with draft reports, profiles, mock drafts and opinions being aired in every format you could possibly imagine.
It is now an enormous event on the NFL calendar and has come a long way from the smokey backrooms with names being written on a chalkboard and teams only having newspaper reports as their scouting network.
On a personal note, the first draft which garnered my attention was the 1985 NFL Draft, the year I became a fan of college football, with Bruce Smith being taken with the first overall pick by the Bills. It was also the year in which Jerry Rice and William Perry went in the first round to the 49ers and Bears respectively, Randall Cunningham went in the second round to the Eagles and Herschel Walker went in the fifth round to the Cowboys.
From that moment on I was hooked, not just on college football, but the draft event itself. It is without doubt, one of my favourite sporting events of the year, without actual sport going on at the event. I absolutely love it and like many have my draft day rituals.
I hope you are as excited as I am.
Get your big boards ready and prepare your snacks and drinks.
This is the NFL Draft.
"And with the first pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, the Jacksonville Jaguars select....."
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