Interest in the Draft?

The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s website can be as addicting to a football fan as the new craze of Pinterest is to many individuals who are spending hours of their day browsing, pinning, and repining. For the record, we’ve launched our Pinterest page (@ProFootballHOF) so go ahead and start following us.

Back to the topic of our website. Each day if you stop by Profootballhof.com you will be treated to your fill of entertaining content (stories, polls, photos, videos, and more) about pro football and what makes it so great.

But, perhaps you’re not quite aware of just how in-depth our site is when it comes to the history of the NFL. No doubt, you could spend hours a day bouncing from page to page among our thousands and thousands of stories about the history of the game. Assuming that you’re a bit busy, I’ve decided to devote this week’s blog to some quick links to some interesting draft related stories found deep inside our site.

Every pick, every year. This is the easiest to read and most comprehensive listing of every draft from the NFL’s inaugural draft in 1936 through last April’s draft. 1936-2011>>>

Heisman Hall of Famers. Impress your friends with a little draft trivia like, “how many Heisman Trophy winners have been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame?” Answer>>>

As luck would have it? Assuming Andrew Luck is the first overall pick by the Colts later this month is one thing, assuming he’ll make it to Canton someday is another thing. Only 13 Hall of Famers were first overall picks. See the list>>>

Four future Hall of Famers were picked in the NFL’s first draft. See 1936 NFL Draft>>>

One of my favorite quotes came from comedian W.C. Fields who advised, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, ty again. Then, quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it!” Which is the perfect segue to an interesting side note about the perils of the Redskins’ draft success in the 1940s.

Long before scouting became sophisticated, teams would often scour national magazines to evaluate draft picks. Sometimes, this resulted in mistakes. For example, Washington used the 9th pick of the 1946 NFL Draft on UCLA back Cal Rossi. What they didn’t realize, Rossi was only a junior and not eligible to be selected. Not to worry. The Redskins waited a year and then used their first pick in 1947 on Rossi again. But, what they didn’t know was that Rossi had no intention of playing pro football!

You’ll find these types of tidbits on each of the draft decade landing pages of our draft coverage.
1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s

As the draft has grown into more of an event over the years, our curatorial staff has collected items from the draft. Most notable are the cards that are delivered to the podium with each team’s pick. Here’s one from the Patriots’ sixth round in 2000.

I’m going to stop my blog now but that doesn’t mean you need to stop exploring Profootballhof.com. Enjoy!