Pro Football's Most Coveted Draft Prospects since the NFL-AFL Draft Merger (50 Years!)

Florida State's Marvin Jones is listed among the most coveted linebacker draft prospects of all time.

1969 was the first year that both the NFL and AFL merged to have the same draft of college football's best players. Since that time, thousands of players have been drafted, with hundreds going on to achieve ample success in pro football. However, since it has now been 50 years since that particular draft took place, I wanted to highlight the most coveted prospects of all time while giving the reasons for them being heavily desired by NFL front offices. It has been about a 25 year process of researching such information, countless hours of watching game film, and consulting with a a lot of scouting eyes in order for me to compile such a list.

Over the next several weeks, I'll reveal the list of such prospects by individual positions for everyone to enjoy and read about.

These are the positions that will be covered:

Pro-Style QB's

Dual Threat QB's

RB's

FB's

WR's

TE's

OT's

Guards & Centers

DE's

DT's

ILB's

OLB's

CB's

Safeties

DB's

Again, the list is based on how the prospects (who were drafted in the 1st round) were perceived by NFL front offices and pro scouts over the course of 50 years and not based solely on collegiate accolades such as Heisman Trophy awards and other All-American honors, although they may be part of the description of various prospects. In addition, there are players listed under the "Other Notables" category because although heavily coveted, they did not make the top list. Next, there are a number of prospects that are listed as a "Wildcard," meaning that for various reasons such as character issues, NFL biases, or senseless reasoning, and thus were not drafted high when they should have been. Lastly, there are certain pro prospects in the past (who are wildcards) that made the decision to play in other pro football leagues or may have committed an NCAA violation that caused them to be selected in the Supplemental Draft, but for the most part the wildcards who were drafted in the NFL still had to be taken in the first round in order to make this list as well as the prospects who were taken in the regular NFL drafts. Some positions will have more players listed for the simple fact that more players are usually selected at those particular positions in the history of the draft. (this link will be placed on the pages of each individual position to serve as a reminder on how the lists were compiled). Enjoy!

NEW HORIZONS!

Jerry Rice of Mississippi Valley State

For the most part, it has both been a fun ride and a huge blessing having been involved in the college football recruiting atmosphere for the past 20 years. It was always a pleasure to see prospects that I personally wrote about, sign to a number of colleges across the US. Now I have completely transitioned over to "independent pro football scouting." In contrast, the beautiful thing about pro football scouting is that there is no 7-on-7 aspect and certainly not tons of apparel-named football camps (t-shirt events) to unfairly judge prospects from. No, pro football scouting will strictly be based on game film, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE! I will definitely be covering HBCU prospects, certain prospects from both the southeast and southwest regions, and anyone else that I want to highlight. Also, I will be providing information from a historical perspective of pro football scouting, like the photo listed on this particular blog post. I'm very excited.



SIT BACK AND ENJOY!!!!!!!!! 😊