How history shaped the NFL draft

Heading into World War II and some time beyond, the media frenzy that is the NFL draft today wasn’t much of an attraction to NFL fans or the media world at all. Scouting departments didn’t even exist and those who did travel to meet prospects did so by train and only usually for local tri-state players that received headlines in the press for their collegiate play.

It’s rumored that most NFL teams of that era entered the draft room with little more knowledge than the Street & Smith draft magazine of that time they bought on the way to the meeting at the inaugural draft event held in 1936 at Philadelphia’s Ritz Carlton Hotel.

The NFL draft was 9 rounds long and with the absence of anything that resembles currant OTA’s or minicamps, sometimes it took weeks for college players to even find out themselves if they had been selected in the NFL draft. In the offseason, most future and current players had to go to work just to support their family.

From 1938 to 1948, the NFL only allowed the teams with the 5 worst records heading into each draft to even select a player in the 2nd and 4th rounds until the late 1940’s when the league added a “bonus pick” where one randomly selected team outside of the bottom 5 could have a pick in those 2 rounds. Teams that understood the draft knew how to make those “bonus selections” pay off as future Hall of Famers Chuck Bednarik and Paul Hornung were taken with bonus selections.

The draft was a 9 round event, expanding to 10 rounds when the Cleveland Rams entered the league in 1937. But the draft soon expanded to 30 rounds in just a few short years as the NFL began to lose its players to the other draft, the one that sent its players to beaches of Sicily where upwards of 600 current and future NFL players never returned. In January of 1947, when NFL owners found out WWII was finally over, continuing the jovial, free-flowing, smoke filled room affair they called the NFL draft would soon cause the NFL as we know it to enter the biggest fight its ever seen.

Until this point, the draft room was filled with names like Rooney, Halas, Lambeau, Mara, and George Preston Marshall. But around the corner a group of businessmen were starting up a new professional football league, the All-American Conference, and hired ex Ohio State coach Paul Brown to oversee operations and awarded the inaugural franchise in Cleveland to him. The new league was to use mostly the same rules as the NFL, but did not have a draft process and were able to sign players at will.

Coming from war torn times, Brown, who was the Ex Head Coach of the Great Lakes Naval Academy and had insight into returning military veterans he formerly coached at OSU and Massilon High School, he was able to bypass the draft process and ink players such as Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Lou Groza, Chuck Noll, Bud Grant, and Dante Lavelli among other HOF’ers on his way to creating a dynasty of that era.

This new league, The All-American Conference (AAFC) would be comprised of 7-8 teams and continue with their free agency process in the 1946 season stealing hundreds of current NFL players and future prospects. Due to the lack of a draft process where a player could only negotiate with one team, a bidding war ensued for highly regarded players forcing them into the AAFC to earn higher paychecks further diluting the talent level in the NFL.

One astonishing deal that was reported was to ex AAFC star Charlie Trippi where the AAFC’s Chicago Cardinals offered a 4 year $100,000 deal and a tryout with the Chicago Cubs to make him a 2 sport star. The NFL quickly reacted to these negotiations and began to hire what became known as “babysitters” to the general public, but 125 “representatives” as far as the NFL was concerned, to travel campus to campus befriending collegiate prospects to entice them to sign in the NFL in what the NFL termed as “operation handholding” put into place by Rams owner Dan Reeves.

The league owners also began holding its draft in a secret forum and not revealing the results to general public. In 1947, when the AAFC began to hold a draft as well to create more parity amongst teams, also held its draft in secret and it then became a race for each league to ink its draftees. As this process lasted for a few years and money troubles ensued as a result, the NFL and AAFC were forced to merge together with the NFL staying in tact and 3 AAFC teams (Cleveland Browns-Baltimore Colts-San Francisco 49ers) moving to the NFL while the rest of the AAFC teams dissolved and the players were absorbed.

The negotiations of this merger became so difficult, the NFL announced that the league will no longer go on and from that point forward would be known as the NAFL or National American Football League. It lasted for 75 days in the offseason until the NFL announced enough is enough and they would retain the old NFL name and logo hereby dissolving the merger and calling it an absorption of another league in 1950.

Later on in the decade, the draft was still a primitive process with little or no communication amongst teams or prospects. It wasn’t until 1956 when a savvy PR man from the Los Angeles Rams known as Pete Rozelle, who would later become commissioner of the NFL, set up shop at his draft table with a telephone, the first team to do so. This gave the Rams a HUGE advantage in scouting and they posted winning records in 9 of their first 10 seasons with multiple championship game appearances. The Rams were able to discover small school prospects by the likes of Dick “Night Train” Lane and Gene “big daddy” Lipscomb. Later on, Rams Head Coach Sid Gillman took it a step further by cutting game film into offense and defense to isolate specific plays and players.

After seeing how other teams were gaining advantages, every franchise was now in the mix looking for an edge. By the mid 60’s, the Dallas Cowboys owned the competitive edge in the scouting process with Tom Landry, Tex Schramm, and former hospital baby photographer Gil Brandt. They developed the first computer and program to track prospects known as “TROIKA”. It was a computer model to evaluate players and at that time was so costly the Cowboys had to employ the likes of the Rams and 49ers just to help pay for it. TROIKA took 4 years to develop and graded prospects on a scale of 1-10 in the areas of: character-quickness-competitiveness-strength-mental alertness.

In its trial run in 1965, even cynics couldn’t dispute the validity of TROIKA because its top NFL prospect was a QB from the University of Alabama by the name of Joe Namath. The Cowboys technical advantage paved the way of becoming Americas team and one of the most successful franchises of the 1970’s playing second fiddle to only yours truly, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

But the technological advantage the Cowboys of the 60’s had quickly closed when teams began to pool resources and formed LESTO, or (Lions-Eagles-Steelers-Talent-Organizatoin) with the Chicago Bears coming on board a year later forming BLESTO, which is still active today supplying NFL teams with prospect notes. Another draft organization, CEPO (Central Eastern Personnel Organization) comprised of the Colts, Browns, Packers, and St. Louis Cardinals formed as well. These organizations found it possible to bring certain players in for pre draft workouts.

But in 1971, the original owners of TROIKA (Cowboys-San Fran-Buffalo) staged what is known as the first NFL combine hosting 50 players at once to test their physical skills against each other. Over the next 12 years, as many as 3 combines were held at once with BLESTO bringing its prospects to the Silverdome and CEPO taking its participants to Tampa Bay. As a founding member of BLESTO, the Pittsburgh Steelers were finally able to turn their draft fortunes around. They drafted a Hall Of Famer each year between 1969-1972 and the draft class of the ages in 1974 which included the likes of Lynn Swann, Jack Lambert, John Stallworth and Mike Webster.

These players anchored what would become one of the greatest NFL dynasties of the modern era winning 4 Superbowls in the decade. From the dynasty era of the 1970’s until now, including all 6 Superbowl wins, the Steelers have yet to follow up a title with a solid draft full of contributors. Whether it be the last pick in a 28 or 32 team league, the Steelers haven’t been able find the kind of steals they have at the top of drafts after down years.

Coming off a victory in XLIII, they are going to need to find a way to replace what could be as many as 12 starters after the 2009 season that will head into free agency. In those 5 drafts following a Superbowl victory, the Steelers have selected a total of 79 football players went on to perform in a mindnumbing 2 pro bowls between them. Both pro bowl selections coming from Ex-Steelers offensive lineman, Tunch Ilkin who is the current radio voice of the Steelers.

While we’re still waiting for the 2006 draft class to develop itself, only 2 players are current starters, Santonio Holmes and Willie Colon. While Holmes did pull off some heroics en route to becoming the MVP of XLIII, Steeler Nation will still have to wait to see if he rises to the top of AFC wide receiver to ever earn a pro bowl birth. I think its safe to say Willie Colon wont be making the trip to Hawaii any time soon.

Here is a look at how they’ve fared drafting the year after a Superbowl victory: