Draft Countdown: Just one more day
NFL.com Staff | Tags: Draft Countdown, Carolina Panthers, Doug Williams, Peyton Manning, Warren Moon
One.
It’s a great Metallica song, decent Three Dog Night song and mediocre U2 song. And it’s how many days we’ve got until the NFL draft.
One freaking day. One more for scouting personnel across the league to figure it out, so to speak. Hopefully the Panthers have, as they’re in the leadoff spot.
Besides hitting at the top of the order, what else does the No. 1 remind us of?
- Be honest. Kickers, right? Or, if you’re Peyton Manning, the No. 1 pick in the 1998 NFL Draft, it will interminably be “our idiot kicker.” Rafael Septien (10th round, 1977), Gary Anderson (seventh round, 1982) and Jason Elam (third round, 1993) all wore the infamous 1.
- Some mock drafts have only one running back going in the first round. That hasn’t happened since Greg Bell (26th overall to the Bills) was the only one taken in 1984.
- The NFL’s best No. 1 is Warren Moon — hands down, game over. Surprisingly, he wasn’t drafted in 1978.
- Doug Williams was picked 17th overall that same year, becoming the first African-American quarterback to be drafted in the first round. That was before he became the first African-American quarterback to win a Super Bowl (XXII).
- A guy you might not have heard of, Benny Friedman, was a classic No. 1 back in the ’20s and ’30s and was the first quarterback who could actually throw the ball (which, in those days, resembled the lovechild of a football and volleyball).
How far the game has come since then. And how far we’ve come, as we are just one day away from Ron Rivera and Carolina picking first overall.
– Elliot Harrison


