Throwback Thursday: Greatest NFL Draft Class

It's about ten years too early to truly judge the Minnesota Vikings 2012 NFL Draft. Based on their rookie year, the class looks terrific. Nine of the ten picks made the team. Six of the nine started some or all of the games. Two, tackle Matt Kalil and kicker Blair Walsh, ended their rookie season in Hawaii at the Pro Bowl. Having two first round picks certainly helped the talent level. Kalil and safety Harrison Smith look like cornerstone players. As great as that class seems right now, it has a long, long way to go before it can stand next to the best draft classes. It's hard to imagine any class matching the greatest of all time.

I've thought about great draft classes when I realized that the Chicago Bears added Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers in the 1965 NFL Draft. They pulled two Hall of Famers in one draft. Incredible. Both players are in any conversation of the greatest players at their respective positions. The Bears didn't add much beyond Butkus and Sayers in that draft. Jim Nance and Frank Pitts made their impact in the American Football League having never played for the Bears. The Baltimore Ravens 1996 NFL Draft brought in Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis. Ogden was just elected to the Hall of Fame. Lewis will be there in five years. There are probably other drafts by other teams that were highlighted by a couple of Hall of Famers. None of those come close to what the Pittsburgh Steelers did in the 1974 NFL Draft. The Steelers had a few terrific drafts around that time. Four Super Bowl titles were the result of some super drafting. What they did in 1974 was beyond super. It should have been illegal.

Rd

  1  Lynn Swann

  2  Jack Lambet

  4  John Stallworth

  4  Jimmy Allen

  5  Mike Webster

Swann, Lambert, Stallworth, and Webster are honored in Canton. None of the other players drafted beyond round 5 played more than a season with the Steelers. They didn't need to. The Steelers did add safety Donnie Shell as undrafted free agent. He may not have received the honors of his classmates but he had a real nice career with the Steelers. The four drafted stars of 1974 were added to a young core of Steelers that included fellow future Hall of Famers Joe Greene, Terry Bradshaw, Franco Harris, Jack Ham, and Mel Blount. With that kind of talent it's no surprise that the Pittsburgh Steelers would win four of the next six Super Bowls. These drafts were incredible. None more than the class of 1974. If there was ever a greater draft, I haven't seen it. Perhaps the Vikings 2012 class will one day challenge it.