The inquiry in this podcast episode centers on the provocative question of whether the 16th overall pick in the NFL draft can be considered the greatest in history. This query is substantiated by the noteworthy achievements of players selected at this position, most notably the legendary Jerry Rice, whose illustrious career began after being chosen by the San Francisco 49ers in 1985. His remarkable contributions to the sport, including three Super Bowl victories and numerous records, underscore the potential of this draft slot.

Furthermore, the discussion extends to other prominent players such as Troy Palomalu and Zach Martin, who have also left indelible marks on the game. Join us as we explore the compelling history of the 16th pick and the legacies of those selected therein, alongside our esteemed guest, Ed Cleese.

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Our question in this episode arises, is the 16th overall pick in the NFL draft the greatest in history?

It just might be because this is where the goat started his journey.

The rest was history with three super bowl victories and every record in the book for receiver.

But it's not just Jerry.

Pick 16 gives us the fly in Hawaiian Troy Palomalo and a brick wall known as Zach Martin from the Canton locks to the greatest of all time.

Let's look at the power of 16.

This is pigskin Dispatch and we are joined by our guest Ed Cleese who's on our journey of all 32 top picks in the NFL's history and all the legends that came with them.

Pick 16 is here now.

Hello, my football friends.

We are in the middle of the draft.

I'm sorry, we're in the middle of waiting for the draft.

We are 16 days out for the draft in Pittsburgh.

And join me today as we have been for the last 16 days is Ed Cleese as we're counting down the draft days with looking at the history of the draft.

Ed, welcome back to the Pig pen.

Hey, Darren, we're at the exact midway point.

How are you tonight?

We are at the midpoint.

You are absolutely right.

And it's, you know, halfway through that journey.

It's been fun so far.

It's only going to get better from here.

We're climbing that mountain and get, getting some really outstanding players.

We get to talk about as we.

Go on here some big names coming up especially tonight.

Yeah, definitely, you know, 16th position in the draft.

You know, it's middle of the pack.

You know, it's, you know, the contenders are have already or, you know, we've already talked about all the contending teams from the previous season, how they drafted.

Now we're getting into these, the bottom feeders of the league from the previous year.

But the higher draft picks and the more marquee players in some cases and we got a lot to talk about.

So why don't you give us your overview of pick number 16 history.

16Th pick is a lot of haves and have nots.

There is not as much middle ground as we've seen in some of these other picks.

I didn't have a whole lot of guys that I was indifferent on.

There were a lot of no names and busts and then some major heavy hitters at the top.

So that's kind of the.

We'll, we'll Start.

I like to always start with, like, recent.

And I'd say the last 10 years have not been pretty.

I'd say we're tapping out at decent to slightly above average in recent years.

So 60.

A little surprising.

You know, we're mid.

We're only halfway through the first round, and we're not.

Teams aren't hitting very often recently.

Like for example, my team, the commanders.

Two years in a row, they took Emmanuel Forbes.

Neither of them lasted more than two seasons on the team.

And now they're both kind of struggling and being replaced at their next team, the Eagles and Rams, respectively.

Now, Forbes bounced back a little bit and did have some moments for the Rams last year, but they spent a lot of money on corners this, this offseason, so there's just been a lot of that.

Career record of 6 and 12.

So only started 18 games, only one third of them, and was out of the league.

And then one that really stands out would be Dan McGuire.

He went 2 and 3 in his career for the Seahawks.

Two or 91 or 92.

I'm sorry.

And two and three in his career, five career starts.

That's really bad for the 16th pick in the draft.

He is the tallest quarterback in the history of the NFL at 6, 8.

The brother of Mark McGuire, of course.

And during my research, I found something really interesting.

Chuck Knox was the coach of the Seahawks in the early 90s, and he did not want McGuire.

So this, I know this would have been the 91 draft because this answers my question.

Is the guy went in the second round.

1991.

Boy, I'm.

I'm drawing a blank.

Who would even be.

Chuck Knox desperately wanted to take a kid out of Southern Miss named Brett Favre.

He was overruled by ownership in Seattle who insisted on McGuire.

So it's funny how the balance of history can shift, you know, just like on a decision like that.

You know how the.

The trajectory of two franchises would have been so dramatically different had the owners just listened to the old coach on.

On who to take a quarterback.

Yeah.

And meanwhile the.

Well, they didn't get him in the draft, but the future coach, Mike Holmgren of the Seattle Seahawks was in Green Bay and eventually they would end up getting their hands on them from the Falcons.

Right, exactly.

And then.

And then the busts were not exclusive to quarterbacks, Darren.

We had lots of busts or near bust.

I'm not going to name them all.

I'm going to be really nice to leave some of the guys off of this list.

We had Justin Harrell, who started.

He was awesome in college and he was a little unfortunate his career was over after two years, pretty much due strictly to injuries.

Had some real devastating knee.

It's funny, we've seen a lot of that from the guys that were drafted, like in the 80s and 90s, like an early knee injury and they're done.

They're done.

So we've come a long way in injury rehab and guys coming back because early on there's so many guys we've talked about, Darren, that blew out a knee their rookie year, second year, and they're done, they're gone.

Well, you think about the field surfaces they were playing on.

There's still carpet they were playing on and not Foxborough there for Dykes.

Yeah, for sure.

Yep.

No doubt.

That's a good point.

John was not nearly as good as his sons.

He flamed out really quick.

He played three years in the NFL only at seven sacks.

And then the next year, the Dolphins outdid themselves by drafting linebacker Eric Kumara.

And get this, Darren, zero career starts, taking in 16th.

16Th pick in the draft.

And you never start a game in the NFL.

Not one that he played some games but never got a start and was out of the league.

He played only one year in Cincinnati before they shipped him off to the Chiefs and.

And then he quickly retired and became an actor.

Well, at least he made a good career move out of it.

Sure.

I think he's been in a lot of like, B movies and maybe some commercials and stuff.

So that's how badly he didn't want to play for the Bengals.

I guess so, yeah.

Now, it wasn't all bad.

I've got some honorable mentions on the good side, Dominic Rogers, Cromartie was drafted number 16 overall, had a really solid career.

And then I had two old school offensive linemen.

He was a center and he wound up being the center for all four of the super bowl teams.

Now hear that again.

So he obviously had a very long career.

That's a great career.

And he played for the St. Louis Cardinals where he was drafted.

They became the Phoenix Cardinals and he was still there when they transitioned to the Arizona Cardinals.

So he played for well into the double digit years, all with the Cardinals.

Really nice career.

The only city he missed was when they were the Chicago Cardinals.

Exactly.

He only didn't, he only didn't play in Chicago.

He wasn't that old.

Both defensive linemen that had really nice careers.

Wow.

I'm surprised that one of those didn't make your top five.

So yeah, it was interesting.

It was a tough cut.

Yeah, I'll bet, I'll bet.

All right, well, let's get to your top five.

So.

Top five.

So the heart wants what the heart wants.

And number five, this is the guy that bumped McLaughlin and Hugh Douglas.

And you know, I try not to be biased and I try to set that aside, but sometimes we are what we are, Darren.

And I have all my whole life, my whole, my whole life of watching football, I will die on this hill for this player.

And that is number five.

I will die on the Santana Moss hill.

He didn't have a lot of accolades in his career in terms of like Pro Bowls, All Pros, like that.

He did have four 1,000 yard seasons, which is good.

66 Career touchdowns, which is good.

Neither of those completely jump off the page compared to some of these other receivers we're talking about, but I've got them on here for two reasons, Darren.

Number one is he put up, he was very productive.

He played on some decent teams with actually both the jets and the Redskins, but never in explosive offenses or with elite or even decent quarterbacks.

Really kind of maxed out at okay quarterback play during his career, but never on like explosive offenses.

Where they could really exploit him.

And then number two, Darren, he was a massive big game player, a guy that you could really count on.

The jets did, believe it or not, they actually beat the Colts.

He scored a touchdown in that game.

He had a 100 yard receiving game in the playoffs and scored a go ahead touchdown in the game they won against San Diego.

Moss tied it with a 75 yard punt return for a touchdown in Pittsburgh.

In the Redskins playoff loss in Seattle, he had 100 yards receiving in a touchdown.

He was the famous one behind the Monday night miracle comeback by the Redskins.

Two touchdowns in three minutes, both over the 60 yards.

He had a 65 yard touchdown against the Jaguars in overtime.

He was a big time playmaker.

He was sort of a.

In a sea of lost years for the Redskins during the Dan Snyder era.

I would actually maybe argue that he was the number one most popular player of that entire Dan Snyder era.

Maybe besides Sean Taylor.

Santana is beloved in Washington.

He's in the ring of fame.

He.

And he's in my top five.

Yeah, I mean great player.

I mean a dude who's a burner, stretched the field, made some big catches like you alluded to.

And yeah, he was a gamer.

I think he was a good player for the jets and the Redskins, you know, so, yeah, for sure followed all the way through his career.

So yeah, definitely a good pick.

Absolutely.

All right, so who do you have it for?

Number four?

Javon Curse, the freak.

Do you remember one of the great nicknames, the Freak?

And you know what's funny about him is his first three years he started all 16 games and in his first three years he was off to about as good of a start as any defensive end ever.

He was the defensive rookie of the year and first team all pro as a rookie.

That's off the charts.

Good.

That's very rare.

Very, very rare.

In the Music City miracle playoff win against Buffalo, he had two sacks, a safety, two force fumbles.

He had a sack in the super bowl that year against Kurt Warner.

He was very good in the playoffs in 99 that rookie year.

After that he made a couple more Pro bowls.

He had 36 sacks in his first three seasons.

So you do the math there.

That's really, really good.

He got injured and then he was the comeback player.

Of the year, the year after that, and then after that, it was just kind of over.

It just.

He was a decent player for a couple of years.

He had a couple of okay years for the Eagles and then he ended back in Tennessee.

So it just kind of ended abruptly and quickly.

But, man, those first few years, he was like off the charts good.

Yeah, he was almost like a video game player.

You know, I can think of two defenders over watching football that were.

Just seemed to be on every play when they, especially when they were in their younger seasons in the NFL.

You know, one was Junior Sale, who seemed like he was sideline.

The sideline.

Another one was Javon Curse.

And Curse was, you know, in almost every play.

And from a defensive end where you're playing on one side of the ball and you're making tackles on the opposite side, you know, that's, that's really amazing.

And he was all over the place, like you said, especially early on in his career.

And I'm not sure dudes ever looked any better in a football uniform than Curse did.

Goodness, he looked like he was cut.

Impressive.

Yeah, he was cut.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Remind me of myself in my younger days.

Me too.

I think you were, you were.

I think you were nicknamed the Freak, but maybe for other reasons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then I, then I woke up and.

All right, so who do you have ranked at number three?

Number three is a guy that's going to be in the hall of Fame.

I'm very confident in saying that.

I mean, this is really, this.

We don't really need to talk much about this, Darren, because he was first team all pro seven of his 11 seasons in the, in the NFL.

Unfortunately.

He was very durable.

And then he had a terrible ankle injury and just like couldn't come back from it.

So his career was a little bit short, I guess at those 11 years.

If you're going to dock him for anything, maybe it would be that.

But I think that he is just in the hall of Fame.

I really don't think there's going to be a debate about it.

And you know, a guy that was on our top five earlier in the list was Travis Frederick, the center.

And those two overlapped for like five years there.

And that is, you know, Dax, early years when Zeke Elliott was, you know, running rough, shot over the league.

Their offensive line was amazing.

And it was because of those two dudes.

Yeah, Cowboys usually have some pretty strong linemen on, and definitely Zach Martin is one of them.

So.

Great, great selection there.

Yes.

Are you ready to.

Are you ready to stand up and cheer for this next one?

I think I might be cheering too early, but.

Easy.

Easy as it gets.

Would probably be number one on a lot of these picks if it wasn't for the one guy that's ahead of him.

I just put down I didn't have a lot of numbers because I thought maybe you take care of that.

But what I would say about him.

Just a gamer, you know, Just a gamer and one of the most fun guys to watch.

I was a youth football coach for my son, and I would sometimes, if I had to pick a player for some of the kids to watch that just say, hey, just watch some highlights of this guy and play football.

Like that.

That is sort of like.

And that's Troy Palomalo, the, you know, flying around, like, literally his hair flying around, but jumping over the line.

He's sacking quarterbacks, he's making plays on the back end.

He's all over playing with, like a lot of joy.

He was a really fun guy to watch.

He had the game ceiling.

Of course, the Steelers won the super bowl that year.

I'm sure you remember that play when the Ravens had a chance to win or tie and he took it back to the house.

Just, Just an amazing player, one of the best safeties ever.

I did.

When we talked a few weeks ago or a few picks ago.

I'm sorry about comparing him to Ed Reed.

I put Reed just a tad ahead, but they're basically neck and neck as two of the best safeties of all time.

Yeah, I, I mean, I agree with you.

Reed was probably the better value pick because he was a lower round pick, you know, than Paul Moll.

But I think Palomalo had a.

Maybe a better career.

And maybe I'm biased, but that's okay.

You know, earlier with Santana Moss, you know, Paula Mallo, you know, I, I appreciated so much how Paula Mallo played, but I really.

It came to light after he retired a couple years ago, I got to talk to his defensive coordinator for many years, Dick LeBeau, and LeBeau would talk so much about Troy Palomalo.

You know, you can tell there's a couple players that he just had that Sparkle in his eye and.

And really was very fond of.

But Palomalo was his chess piece and he could put him basically anywhere on the field.

I mean, the dude would play in the box, but sometimes he's up on the line of scrimmage, you know.

Oh, absolutely.

You think about that play against the Tennessee Titans where he, he leaped over the line.

It was a first and goal.

And I think it was Kerry Collins.

He, he dropped, you know, before he even really took the ball from center.

You know, he was, he.

He was on the ground.

It was unbelievable.

And you know, that interception they picked off Flacco for the.

Took it back to the house.

You know, anytime you can put a dagger in your rival, especially in a playoff game, that was Paul Amalo.

But just some of the unbelievable tackles he would made.

I mean, he was a very sure tackler.

He was like a missile.

He was a Tasmanian devil was one of his nicknames, and that's what he played it for.

And when you say a guy playing with his hair on fire, well, he had plenty of fire coming out of that helmet.

Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.

Yeah.

I love Paul Mo.

So, yeah, good, good selection.

But I agree with you.

You can't take him number one, probably almost most other draft slots.

You could probably be debatable for number one, but probably not this one, because you have a very good number one.

You're going to talk.

Yeah.

I mean, and the hard thing about this is like, what I thought to myself, what am I going to say about this guy that isn't just reading off the numbers?

And I think I got it.

Of course, his rookie year was fine.

It didn't really stand out.

And then after that it was just like, give me a break with this guy.

Unbelievable.

He is, of course the all time leader in NFL history in catches, in yards, in touchdown receptions, in scrimmage yards.

He's the all time leader in NFL history in playoff reception yards and playoff reception touchdowns.

He was great in the actual super bowls, including one MVP of a Super bowl at age 40.

By the time he was in Oakland, he had age 40.

And that team went to the Super Bowl.

The Raiders went to the super bowl of all teams.

Right.

And then he had a pretty good year at 41 2.

And then at 42, it was finally time for him to hang it up.

And I don't with, with Rice, it's like, what do you say?

And ultimately, Darren, I land on this.

I think that Jerry Rice is the greatest football player of all time.

Period, end of sentence.

He's.

If we're doing an all time list, he's my number one.

There's going to be a guy that down the road I'm pretty sure we're going to talk about that I sometimes waffle with.

But he's number one for me.

I don't think you can play your position in football any better than Jerry Rice played his.

And I'm not really sure how you even debated.

Yeah, I agree with you.

Because he's just so dominant his position.

I mean, I think Randy Moss is in second for most of the NFL records to Jerry Race and he's not even in the same ballpark.

No, with Race's numbers, you know, it's, it's like night and day, you know, you look at him like, holy shit.

That was like two careers in between their numbers, you know.

And Moss was a very good player, as we well know.

Yeah.

And he was, he was on our list earlier and.

But the other thing is just, you know, sometimes the eye test, meaning, you know, my team played the 49ers a lot in the 80s and if it's like third and six, you're like, they should just move the chains right now, you know, he is getting the first down, he's making the big play.

He of course benefited from playing with two hall of Fame quarterbacks, but as we mentioned, even as a 40 year old playing with a non hall of Fame quarterback later in his career, he was still insanely productive.

He would have been awesome in any offense, any era, anytime.

He is the goat.

Well, he was even part in college.

Willie taught and I believe.

Were they Jackson State?

I think.

Yes.

They set that NCAA record.

Was it Mississippi?

I always get Jackson State or Mississippi.

Maybe it was Mississippi State.

Yeah.

Valley State.

Right, right, right.

Yeah, that's what it was.

Yeah.

But Willie taught as quarterback and they set like an NCAA record for touchdowns.

It was like someone godly numbered.

I forget if it was the yardage or the touchdown passes, but Jerry Rice caught the majority of those in that game and you know, in record books for college too.

So he was outstanding his whole career playing football.

Probably a great Pop Warner player too, you know.

Sure he was.

Yeah.

But okay, so it's interesting.

You look and you say, how could Jerry Rice go 16 in a draft, you know, as dominant as he was.

But really, you know, it's fairly legitimate what people took in that draft.

Buffalo took Bruce Smith, who's in the hall of fame, number one that year in 85.

Bill Fralich, you know, was taken by Atlanta.

Chris Doleman's taken fourth by the.

The Vikings.

And, you know, Altoon is in that draft before him, and Jim.

Jim Lachey, you know, so there's some good linemen and, you know, defensive players taken in there.

Lomas Brown is another one that was taken in there, but, you know, Jerry Rice just sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of the pack of that draft.

And it was.

It was a great draft with a lot of talented players, but, man, if people only knew what they knew.

Now, I bet you he'd probably be number one.

With all due respect to Chris Dolman and Bill Froehlich and Al Toon and Lomas Brown, those teams made a mistake.

Yeah.

But you think about it, you know, coming out of college is.

Here you have an HBCU player, you know, and you have, you know, Bruce Smith is, you know, outstanding player in college.

You know, these are all marquee college programs these guys are coming from, with teams filling needs, you know, and definitely Bruce Smith filled the bill for.

For Buffalo.

You know, they would never got to four Super Bowls in a row if it's not for Bruce Smith.

And, you know, but, you know, that's the way sometimes those drafts shake out, and you have outstanding players in the middle of the pack, left over for somebody like the 49ers to snatch up and get even better.

Yep.

Yeah, what a.

What a career, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, well, that is.

Man, that's a.

Definitely a top five pick right there.

Some great selections in there.

We ended up having a Jerry Rice and Troy Palomala, of course, in the hall of Fame.

Excellent linebacker.

You know, many people that you remember that era say he was maybe one of the premier linebackers right up there with Buckus and Nitschke and some of the others from the 60s era teams.

And another player that was kind of an amazing player, and I got to talk to his daughter a few years ago is Gene Washington.

Oh, yeah.

He ended up being in the NFL a part of, you know, some of those great wide receiver cores that were.

Out there, so working for the NFL for many years.

Right, right.

So, you know, some.

Some great players all the way around here.

Back in, you know, the 90 years of draft history for that, you know, the most popular position, you know, if people are whoever's drafting 16 this year wondering, you know what, what could drafting.

But wide receiver has been the most popular position in the first 90 years of the draft.

And like we said, we had three hall of Famers.

And that sort of takes us to our draft stat of the day.

And you're going to like this.

You have your Oklahoma hat on.

I have another Oklahoma draft stat for you.

Now.

The Sooners developed consecutive starting quarterbacks who went to be selecting the NFL draft in Mayfield, Kyler, Murray, Jalen Hurts, Spencer Rattler, Caleb Williams, and even more astounding, three of those five, Mayfield, Murray and Williams were selected number one overall.

So good, good job by the Sooners and finding their signal callers and shipping them off to the NFL.

Yeah.

And you, you know, you really, when I think of Oklahoma, I don't even really think about them as being, you know, quarterback university, but maybe that, you know, I think Miami always gets the credit for that for the Kelly's and Testaverdes and Kosars of the world.

But this is, I mean that's some really big names that they had a quarterback in Sooner country.

Absolutely.

It was a, it was a heck of a run there.

Some big numbers and you know, did you mention Bradford?

Was he on the list?

I didn't even have Bradford.

They were just going five consecutive.

So even earlier than that, I think Bradford went number one overall.

Yeah, all within about a ten year period.

Amazing.

Yeah, definitely.

And multiple coaches too, so that's for sure.

Yeah, great, great deal by them.

So.

So yeah, that's our draft staff for today and that's our draft 16 slot.

Number 16.

You know, halfway there in this journey that we're taking and really appreciate you coming on and I'd love to talk to you again tomorrow about number 15s.

We'll see you tomorrow, Darren.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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