Howdy friends! It’s my Birthday. In the last year I moved, had a kid, biked just under 2000 miles, and opened up about weight issues.
But today’s about the NFL Draft, and it’s time to remember inarguably the nuttiest one - the 1999 NFL Draft, which involved the Bengals turning down Mike Ditka’s absolutely bonkers offer of all of their picks for the 1999 draft, as well as their first and third for the 2000 draft in exchange for their pick so that Ditka could snag running back Ricky Williams, who was mediocre at best. This ruined the Saints for years. They could have had Donovan McNabb and literally not changed anything, or possibly traded down and got Torry Holt or Daunte Culpepper. Shit, Champ Bailey was on the board.
This draft also included Tim Couch, who got I believe sacked more than any rookie quarterback ever has. The Bengals, trying to negotiate even more picks than “literally all your picks, and two of your best picks in the next draft,” decided to go with Akili Smith, who played two years with them and had a 46.6% completion rate. Had they decided to take the trade that the Saints offered…they could have literally done the same thing they did, as it’s doubtful Akili would have been off the board. They then would have been able to take someone at pick 2 in the 2000 NFL Draft, where 5 out of 7 of the top picks would go on to be pro browlers, and pick 9 (Brian Urlacher) would end up becoming a Hall of Famer.
In the 2000 Draft, The Bengals took Peter Warrick with the fourth pick of the draft, missing Lavar Arrington, Chris Samuels, Jamal Lewis, Corey Simon, Thomas Jones, Plaxico Burress and Brian Urlacher. They also missed out on a Quarterback called “Tom Brady” in round 6.
Hindsight’s 2020 I guess.