Alabama Football and NFL Draft: Being drafted late can be overcome

For former Alabama football players seeking good opportunities in this year’s NFL draft, 1,2 and 3 are magic numbers. Fans know why one, as in the NFL Draft first round, is important. First-round picks are investments by teams and those players will be given extended opportunities to prosper in their professional careers.

Though the odds of a long NFL career go down with each subsequent round, second-round and third-round players can and often do have solid NFL careers. Starting with the fourth round and beyond, the windows of opportunity narrow.

The situations described above apply to the total number of players drafted each year. Individual players will be exceptions to those norms.

Over the decades, there have been many former Alabama football players drafted in the fourth round or later that built stable NFL careers.

When the Draft began in 1936, Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant was chosen in the fourth round. By today’s measures, that appears low, but he was the 31st player drafted, by the Brooklyn Dodgers. Bryant quickly understood his future was in coaching.

An oddity of that 1936 Draft was Crimson Tide, College Football Hall of Fame member, Riley Smith was the second pick, and the No. 1 pick that signed a professional contract. The No. 1 pick was Jay Berwanger. Berwanger never played in the NFL because neither Philadelphia (who drafted and traded him) nor Chicago would meet his salary demands. So an Alabama Crimson Tide player became the highest-drafted player to join a 1936 NFL team.