A Comprehensive Analysis of Pick Number 31 in NFL Draft History

0:00And that's the end of the first half, as the team said to the locker room, the Spartans lead the Bulldogs by a score. You guys stink. Jeez, Coach, we're only down a couple of points. No, I mean, you guys really smell. You need to hit the showers. And here, I got every one of you new bars of soap from the Sterling soap company. Each bar is artisan crafted using natural ingredients and essential oils. They also have shaved soaps, cologne, beard, balm, and a whole lot more. Now get in there. But Coach, we have another half to play. I don't care. I can't stand to be around you a few minutes later. All right, bring it in tight. You guys are still playing terrible, but you're smelling great out there. Now listen, you're going to need to stock up for the rest of the season. We got a lot of tough games left. So go to sterlingsoap.com after the game. That's STIRL-I-N-G-Sope.com. You got that? Yes, Coach? Great. SterlingSope.com on three. One, two, three. SterlingSope.com. All right. And by the bond now.

1:03You're at the right place if you want to talk about the history of the NFL draft. We are 31 days before the 2026 NFL draft. And we're going to talk about the history of the past 90 drafts. Ed Cleese joins me here in the pig pen, talking about pick number 31 in today's episode is where you approach that 31 day mark. Ed, welcome back to the pig pen. Thanks for having me, Darren. That definitely Ed. We're glad to have you here. And we had a great conversation yesterday about the history of pick 32. If you miss that, go into the show notes and you can catch that one and get it caught up with that. What we talked about. And now talking about pick number 32, it's, you know, coming up last, I'm sorry, pick number 31. Yeah. We have two Hall of Famers that came out of this draft in the first 90 years of the draft. And it's got the most popular pick in this draft has been running backs and offense attacles. Red 12 each drafted at pick number 31 over the years.

2:07What do you have to say about the history of pick 31? We just think we talked about a little bit yesterday. You know, this is another one of those picks that for about half of the drafts was the second round pick. And more than half of the drafts was the second round pick. And more recently, the last 25 years or so has been to become a first round pick with more teams. What the very first thing that stood out is again, because, you know, I'm going back to, you're going back to the beginning of the draft for some of your numbers. When I'm coming to the player analysis, I'm going back to 1980. And what I noticed is there's been recent years, like the last 10 years, very little impact from this pick. Adalte Oway is probably the best player that I could find in the last 10 years drafted in this pick. Teams have not done very well at this spot recently. And overall, I would say it's not a real standout group that I analyzed at all. There was a real flurry of picks from my 2007 to 2013. And that's going to be re-reflected in my top five.

3:07But otherwise, it's kind of a little bit of a nondescript group. And how about this? Since 1980, at least, no quarterbacks taken 31st in this at this pick. Yeah, there has been very few quarterbacks. Actually, I don't see any quarterbacks have been taken in this draft of pick number 31. So that's really an odd place. You think at least somebody would want a quarterback in that. Yeah, it was kind of weird to me too, especially because on pick number 32, we had some fairly notable quarterbacks. There's a few other notable names that did not make my top five that I think are at least worth mentioning. You had Vance Johnson in 1985 for the Broncos, who was one of the three Amigos receivers, a really nice player. You had Iki Woods in 1988, who for that one or two seasons, took the league by storm really his rookie year. He flamed out quickly, but he was a really fun player with Iki Shuffle, of course, if you remember that.

4:10Jerry Hughes in 2010 had a really nice career, defensive end, and Doug Martin, the running back in 2012, also had a pretty nice career. One guy I do want to talk about, and it's somewhat timely, is that the Redskins took a kid at a temple, a guard named Tray Johnson in 1994. Tray was a dominant player. He was awesome. He was one of, he was a great player on bad teams. Unfortunately, career got totally derailed by injuries fairly early. And unfortunately, we just got the news, I think about a week or a couple a little while ago that he passed away at a very young age. He had become a coach and a teacher and a mentor, but he was a, and for a very brief period was a really, really good offensive lineman in the league. Yeah, that's a very tragic thing for such a young man with a lot of life left to live to lose his life. So yeah, definitely glad you mentioned him on there.

5:11All right, something that we talked about yesterday is, you know, pick 31 hasn't always been a first round pick. And, but it gets a little bit more even yesterday was a little bit more dramatic. The second round was more popular for 32, but for 31, there's been 28 first round times. It's been a first round pick and 32 that it's been a second round pick. And, you know, then it was third and fourth back before the merger and things like that. So, but you have a top five for us today. I do. And really, it's fairly weak, I would say. I kind of had a hard time. Again, I'm going back to 1980. I had a bit of a hard time, no Hall of Famers. My number one is someone I think will be in the Hall of Fame. But as of right now, there aren't any. And we'll start at number five. I had wide receiver Carl Pickens drafted in 1992 by the Bengals. But the reason, you know, he had a very brief burst. The mid 90s, that 95 and 96, I believe Jeff Blake was the quarterback for those years.

6:15He, Pickens led the lead in touchdowns one year. He had a hundred and ninety nine receptions combined over a two year span. And then he was just kind of okay for a couple years when he was gone. So a nice career, look like he might be a superstar and then just kind of faded from there. But, but good enough to make my list. Yeah, I definitely, I think that's a great, great pick there. I think, but he might have had Boomer Sison for a year or two. I don't know. I can't remember. I know Boomer came back. You know, he left the Bengals. I believe he came back. I cannot remember. I've been to 90s, Bengals were pretty forgettable. So I can't. A lot of it runs together. I'm not sure what year, but you did have a couple of massive years on a couple bad teams. Yeah. Okay. So who'd you have at number four? Number four. Another guy who kind of flamed out. It looked like he was going to be on his way to the Hall of Fame, but that would be Nandi Osama. 2003 cornerback for the he was drafted by the Raiders.

7:18And he had like a mid career explosion. He'd be like, he was just like, he was the guy and then all of a sudden people said, hey, this might be one of those corners in the league. If you recall, he's signed a massive free agent deal with the Eagles. And it was like cover of sports illustrated, I think, or some other, like it was like a big deal. And he defined for the Eagles for a year or two and then just kind of faded out. And he's an actor now. And he has a couple of upcoming shows on both Netflix and Apple Plus. If you are, if you to die or do you find out what, what, what Mr. Osama was doing now, you'll be able to stream him very soon. Yeah. Or you can watch him play football or played a very high level in his good years. So there you get that out back on NFL and other things like that. So, okay, who is your third pick? Number three is a guy that would easily, easily be in the Hall of Fame if his career was not cut short. And that would be Travis Frederick drafted 2013 by the Cowboys at center.

8:23Probably one of the best centers in the NFL in the past 25, the last quarter century at least get this man. The dude made three straight all proteins. Now that is awesome. And obviously in center, there's one, right? There's not two guards, two to, there's one center. So, you know, for his career, he was considered basically the best center in the NFL almost every year. He had that, I think I'm pronounced to get correct, the Gillian Bar syndrome. It's a muscle disease that kept him out of one season. He came back and played another season. I believe he made the pro bowl in that season and then had to retire. It's potentially pretty dangerous. I think he's, from what I can understand, he's doing fine now. He just was not able to play football anymore, but that guy was headed to Canton for sure. He probably does not have enough years under his belt to get there, but he was on his way. Yeah. I remember him playing, but yeah, it's unfortunate that he had that disease.

9:25Okay, so who do you have above him? Number two is a guy that, I knew it was good, but when I started digging into the number I was like, dang, this might be all of the members. And that is Greg Olson, tight end, drafted in 2007 by the Bears. I think most of us are going to remember him from the Panthers, but he is in the top 10 all time in both receptions and yards for a tight end. And that is big time. I mean, in the history of the NFL, you've got top 10 and two massive categories. He played all 16 games, Darren, nine years in a row. So at a pretty physical position where you're blocking in and receiving. So nine years in a row, he played every game. I think he was on some very good Panthers teams, highly competitive, played in Super Bowl, even had a couple of decent years there at the end of his career with the Seahawks.

10:27I would say maybe like a sneaky Canton resume, at least can should be in the argument probably. And now I realize that he is now the number two analyst for Fox, but he's really the best. He is really good. I think so he's got a real bright post career future here and doing what he's doing now as well. So he's going to be a guy that's going to be in your football life probably for quite a while. Yeah, most definitely. All right, I think I probably know the answer to this, but who do you have at number one? You're going to love this, I think, because like I said, this is a guy that I believe I'm pretty sure is headed to Canton. And that is Cam Hayward of the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted in 2011. Sort of that hybrid defensive tackle defensive end. I think he's kind of played both. First of all, he's got to be one of the more likable guys in the league, one of the better leaders, one of the more vocal players, just just a real, he's very impressive. But then this is impressive too. He's been extremely durable. He went to six straight pro balls, 92 sacks.

11:30And that's a lot of sacks for a guy that plays interior also. So I don't think he has a Hall of Fame resume. I think at this point, he is a Hall of Fame walk. Yeah, I think you're right there. He's headed that way. And it's amazing, you know, back in 2025, he was 36 years old, almost didn't get signed by the Steelers and PFF rated him as the highest defensive lineman, interior lineman in the league. Iron head would be proud. Yeah, definitely would, definitely would. All right, those are some really solid picks. I think one that maybe, maybe escaped a little bit, I only think you mentioned him earlier, about pod heap, tight end for, for Baltimore for many years in Arizona. He had a couple of pro ball seasons and some very good seasons, ended up having 499 receptions, 42 TDs over 12 years span. So not too bad for tight end. Yeah, yeah. I kind of, I looked at him.

12:30I didn't have him in the list. Maybe I should have mentioned him with the other honorable mention types. Yeah, a nice career for, for heap for sure. Yeah, and I mentioned earlier, we had two Hall of Famers, and these are going in the way back machine, Philadelphia Eagles fans will remember Tommy McDonnell was drafted the third round at the pick number 31, yeah, definitely 1957, he ended up making, having a Hall of Fame career. And Hurley Colp was a draft of Denver in 1968, another great player, defensive tackle that had a very good career, now has a bust in Canton, so those are our two Hall of Famers at pick 31. Yeah, and it's been a while, like I said, Heyward's going to go, I don't think anybody else is, so pick number 31 is ripe for the picking if somebody wants to have a big career. Most definitely. All right, are you ready for our drafts that of the day that we're doing here?

13:31I was impressed with number 32, so let's see if you can beat it with number 31. Okay, so this is interesting from a coaching standpoint, talking about the first round of the draft. Now thanks to Caleb Williams selection, USC head coach Lincoln Riley became the first college coach in common draft era to produce three number one overall picks. Excellent. Yeah, so you know where they all went, right? Where they went to school, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you probably got that on your hat there too. I've got a beer mug up in front of me, that's the same school on it. Nice. All right, Ed, well, I think that wraps up our pick 31 night, 31 days before the draft. Tune back tomorrow where Ed and I will be on again to talk about pick number 30 as we approach the draft for 2026. Ed, we really appreciate you coming on your talk about football history. See you tomorrow.

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