Rummaging the Vaults, vol. 3: Alabama & the NFL Draft: 1936-1949

As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to be going retro a decent bit to kill off the 40 days until kickoff. I will to continue with the game previews and keep you up to date on all the latest news and will do other new stuff, but digging through the archives has been fun so far, so I'm going to keep on with it.

The NFL Draft began in 1936 and in my research through 1949, at least one Alabama player has been selected in every draft.

This edition covers from the first draft in 1936 through 1949. Other periods covered this week will be 1950-1969, 1970-1989, 1990-present.

Excluding the compensatory and supplemental drafts, the 2006 NFL Draft had 240 players taken. Some of the early NFL drafts went well beyond that. The 1945 draft, for instance, saw 330 players selected. Pretty staggering numbers given that there were only ten teams.

One interesting thing they did early on was to have uneven numbers of picks in early rounds. All ten teams would have a pick in the first round, but the second round would only see the first five teams picking. It would then start back at the top of the order in the third round and go a full ten picks. This would only occur for the first 4-6 rounds, but it was an attempt to establish greater parity amongst teams. I can't imagine that would sit too well with today's NFL owners.

Alabama had three players selected in the first draft including one that declined the chance to play professionaly in order to begin a career on the sidelines.

People tend to be more familiar with his later work

1948 was a banner year for Alabama in the draft. They had three players taken in the top five.

Harry Gilmer is Alabama's only #1 draft pick

College football hall of famers are listed in bold

Domnanovich came to Bama despite being recruited by by his hometown team