NFL scouts can arrange anything.
Best dinner in Boone, North Carolina? check. Favorite hotel in Moscow, Idaho? check. Best game movie set in the Big 12? check.
This is what decades of travel will do. But ask your scouts, general managers, and coaches to narrow it down the The best draft potential they’ve ever seen, though, is another matter entirely.
With the 2023 NFL Draft approaching (April 27 at 8 p.m. ET on the ESPN app, ABC, and ESPN), we set out to ask dozens of current or retired draftees who say it’s best prospect They’ve ever seen him. Not the potential person who turned out to be the MVP, but at that moment in the game movie or digital video, pro day or game day, they said to themselves, “This is the best I’ve ever seen.”
The answers varied from, “Let me get back to you,” to, “I want to think about that,” and more often than not, “I can’t just pick one.”
“When you look back, hindsight is always like ‘of course,’” said a former general manager, “but in real time, some guys had things in their game, or their height, or their conditioning or their weight in college. Say the best prospect anyone has ever seen.” That’s the player, at the time, before he plays an NFL game, no questions or very little. Sure stuff, and you’re not going to get to see a lot of it in real time. You see players that you think would be great pros that have been playing in the league for a while. Long, but sure things? Extremely rare.”
The votes have been cast, and while not all players have catapulted themselves into stardom—some derailed by injuries, bad teams, and other circumstances—the list is littered with familiar names.
Bo Jackson, Auburn RB, 1986/1987
With the 1986 NFL Draft approaching, Jackson’s resume was something most scouts hadn’t seen.
The running back won the Heisman Trophy in 1985, his final season at Auburn, with 1,786 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns, averaging 6.4 yards per carry. Jackson finished his career as the school’s all-time leading, had three years in baseball – hitting . 401 as a junior – and two years in track, qualifying for the NCAA indoor meeting in the 60-yard dash.
“Beau will always be the guy I thought he’d be at Canton for me,” said one scout.
Bo Jackson dash ran 4.13 40 yards
Bo Jackson joins His & Hers to share a story of when he ran the 40-yard dash in the NFL in 1986. Jackson says he ran it in 4.13 seconds, not the previously recorded time of 4.12.
Jackson’s 40-yard dash weeks before the draft, on the way to track training in 1986, is still the stuff of Scout lore. Jackson was selected #1 in the 1986 draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but, citing a conflict with then-Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse, Jackson signed with the Kansas City Royals instead.
The Los Angeles Raiders selected Jackson in the seventh round of the 1987 draft with the agreement that he could play football and baseball.
Jackson played 38 regular season games for the Raiders before suffering a career-ending hip fracture and separation during the only playoff appearance of his career—January 13, 1991—against the Cincinnati Bengals. After hip replacement surgery, he played in the MLB until 1994.
Anthony Munoz, USC OT, 1980
“He was the perfect lineman when I saw him,” said one of the scouts who voted for Munoz.
Munoz had three knee surgeries during his USC career, and perhaps his draft situation could have had a more medical impact in today’s environment.
Munoz was on the USC baseball team that won the College World Championship in 1978, but at 6-foot-6 and 278 pounds, Munoz said the NFL was a safer bet for him. The Bengals made him the #3 pick of the 1980 draft.
The Hall of Famer was named to the NFL’s 75th Anniversary Team, Centennial Team, and was a 9-time All-Pro selection and 11-time Pro Bowl in 13 seasons.
John Elway, Stanford QB, 1983
Former Denver Broncos quarterback Gary Kubik said he watched Elway throw “like three balls” in their first off-season practice together after the 1983 draft “and I called my mom and dad and told them ‘Just let you know I’m never going to go play.'” “
“It was the blueprint—Stanford’s brain, the best arm I’ve ever seen, running, throwing, confident, competitive,” said a current GM. “He messed up looking at the midfielders.”
Elway, too, may have had his draft status affected by current medical reviews. He said he traveled to a regional scouting group—there were a few across the country in 1983—and his father told him to leave immediately “so they wouldn’t look at my knee.”
Elway, who was selected by the New York Yankees in the second round of the 1981 MLB draft, was selected #1 by the Baltimore Colts in the 1983 NFL Draft. Elway didn’t want to play for the Colts and said he’d play for the Yankees instead , which led to the Colts trading him to the Broncos.
Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State RB, 1989
The Personnel Director said “I didn’t scout Jim Brown, but you talk to people who have played against Jim Brown or watched Jim Brown play and he will always be the standard for them, everyone is second and it never changes anything. I think that’s where I was With Barry after this Heisman year…a different player than Jim Brown, but I thought I was seeing the future.
Sanders didn’t have the kind of multi-sport resume of others with votes, but he did have one of the most productive seasons in college football history in 1988. In 11 games at Oklahoma State that season, Sanders rushed for 2,628 yards and 37 catches. downhill.
Sanders was selected by the Detroit Lions with the No. 3 pick in the 1989 NFL Draft, a draft that included four Hall of Famers in the first five picks of the draft—Troy Aikman, Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and Deion Sanders.
Little honor
in the end, Jim Brownwho many in and around Syracuse have long argued is the best lacrosse player they’ve ever seen, also has the most votes I haven’t seen.
Champ Bailey (Georgia), Orlando Pace (Ohio) and Rod Woodson (Purdue) – All in the Hall of Fame – As well Adrian Peterson (Oklahoma), Andrew Luck (Stanford) and Sean Taylor (Miami) also got multiple votes. Longtime Houston Oilers and Tennessee Titans scout Co Brocato (the team named the conference room after him), once said that Peterson was “probably” the only player he ever scouted and thought he could have made it from high school to the NFL American.
Hall of Fame general manager Bill Bolian may have spoken for everyone when he said he couldn’t “pick just one.”