Episode 09: Best NFL Draft ever? A look back at the 1989 NFL Draft.

Episode 09: 1989 NFL Draft

Today we’re taking a deep dive into the historic 1989 NFL Draft—widely regarded as one of the greatest drafts in NFL history. This iconic draft class included Hall of Fame legends like Troy Aikman, Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and Deion Sanders, shaping the future of professional football for decades. We’ll break down the key storylines, unforgettable draft moments, and the impact these superstars had on the game. Whether you’re searching for insights about Troy Aikman as the first overall pick, Barry Sanders’ electrifying career, or how the 1989 NFL Draft changed football forever, this episode delivers everything you need to know. Tune in for an in-depth look at one of the NFL’s most pivotal drafts!"

Credits:

Haylee Wolf: narration.

Mason Enis: theme music.

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2024. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

Transcript

[Music] welcome sports fans to Gen X classic

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athletes from our generation this is Gen X classic sports sports talk for Gen xers by gen

xers okay Dylan welcome back this is going to be episode nine this topic will

be the 1989 NFL draft and you came to Dad here and you said by the way for those that

didn't listen to episode 8 this is my son Dylan helping out he's a future sports journalist who is uh you know a

big big Gen X sports music pop culture of all kinds kind of kid he he grew up

as a kid of YouTube so he knows as much about the era that I grew up in probably as I do he came to me with this topic so

Dylan why why were you so determined for us to have this as a topic well you asked me about what uh topic I'd like to

talk about I think I just seen an Instagram post about it like earlier that day and I was like that's obviously in that time frame

that you're looking for and that's a pretty big uh a pretty big moment in NFL

history and especially draft history when you have four first round uh Hall

of Famers drafted in the top four or top five picks and sandwiched in between all

these first batt Hall of Famers you have one of the biggest draft Buss of all time yeah that's what makes it

intriguing of course we'll break all that down for everybody here in just a second but yeah it's you know when I

thought of drafts when we started the podcast and I started thinking about drafts which ones what I like to talk

about the 83 draft hit came up David Mark Casey someone said well the 83

draft is for the NFL at least is worth talking about and and of course that's the quarterback draft that everybody

knows about so um definitely but um yeah I'm I'm fine with talking about this one

because uh I think uh there definitely a lot of interesting story lines here so

I'll uh let me get the particulars out of the way then and and you can jump in here in a second we we just set the

stage on an earlier episode of how the Cotton Bowl in 1989 it had a lot to do with um setting

stage for the draft so the draft as usual the NFL draft in 1989 was in New

York uh and it was April 23rd a two-day event

and you mentioned it earlier but one of the by the way back then there were 335 picks over 12 rounds and one of the

things that you mentioned earlier that um I find interesting is that um Troy

Aman actually went to the draft and uh no one had really done that

Troy was told by his agent uh Le Steinberg that would probably be a good

idea for him to go to the draft and hang out and I I don't know what all went into that but that started the trend of

the players actually showing up at the draft which I find you know really kind of a cool little moment in sports um do

you have a pen in here anywhere uh I can find it's probably over there there is

one grab it for or a pencil anything if you don't mind just really Qui headphones okay so yeah it was April

23rd New York 335 PS 12 rounds 8 Minute 10s okay you mentioned this earlier as

well what was unique about Barry Sanders role in uh this

draft well uh specifically just the Heisman race in general the year prior

1988 there was two quarterbacks like usual that get hyped up in the preseason

and then all of a sudden Barry Sanders who was already a pretty highly valued like running back Prospect coming into

the season set basically every rushing record in a season runs for 200 or 2,600

yards I think it's 30 touchdowns like something ridiculous and all of a sudden

he's a cemented top five pick that's going to go to some team to be a franchise yeah but what else was it that

you mentioned earlier about him that was a little bit um unusual about his status oh his age and uh he was the first

player or at least the first uh recognized player that was allowed to enter the draft as a junior instead of a

senior that's why it was baffling to me that all these senior prospects were playing in all these meaningless bowl

games because they weren't allowed to go to the NFL yet yeah um so

Barry um declared for the draft as a junior which wasn't allowed and the

reason they and I didn't remember this but the reason they let him go ahead and be in the draft is because OSU was about

to get Oklahoma State where he went was about to get hammered with NCAA rules

violations and I don't think it was anything he was necessarily directly involved in as far as his recruitment or

paying getting paid to play or any of that it's just the program was about to sustain um a penalty and so the for

whatever reason the NFL and the NCAA allowed it to happen and probably what I

mean it's not like this was a center or a punter this was the most dominant Min

offensive person on the field that whole season and so the old excuse of well he

may not physically be ready just didn't mean anything that year because he was so dominant

um the uh rule where Juniors were not eligible was completely demolished after

that after Barry did it they took that rule away and that's where people started um declaring as Juniors and

allowed to be part of the draft so yeah Barry Sanders Trend Setter mhm um and I

do remember how big of a deal that was um okay so so set setting the stage a

little bit more the season of 1988 you had uh Aman

you had Rodney Pete was a big name quarterback um you had um you had some

receivers and running backs and things but the the big name of course on uh the

running back list was Barry there was actually a couple of dominant def iive

players that were also on the board that caused a little uh Intrigue and one of

them was Derek Thomas coming out of Alabama and and then Dion Sanders was a part of this draft and so you know

everything you know about Dion was true then all the talk about how dominant he

was all the talk about how good he was going to be as a pro all the talk about how much of a freak athlete he was all

of that was legit even back then so you had Dion you had uh Derek Thomas Derek

Thomas you had amegan so you had some weapons on both sides of the ball that were big stories that made for a pretty

intriguing draft um do you know if Mel copper was doing his thing back then or not what year did

he start well he was doing he wrote almanacs like traffic guides every

single year but the year that he like really I can't remember specifically what year it was but the year that the

Colts passed up on a quarterback and their GM at the time got on uh a call

with M Kyper at the draft Yeah they play that every year yeah and uh that was the

year that they signed hard ball in free agency and they basically chose to keep Hardball over any draft prospects at the

time which I think Trent dord was on so whichever class that was but uh that was

the year that Kyper really changed the draft but before then he writing Gods right so okay so let's let's that's 7

eight minutes of just introducing and setting the stage again so let's dive into a little bit about what happened so

the it was a no-brainer what was going to happen in the first pick because of what I talked about with the

cotton ball Troy Aman was clearly the big physical big armed semi mobble guy

that was fit perfectly in a pro style offense that's what he ran at UCLA

uh if you're Dallas picking first you draft a guy like that and you make it work offensively so um it wasn't Tom

Landry that got to do it it ended up being Jimmy but Troy Amman clearly not a problem no one had a problem with him

going uh number one number two the second pick was a guy named Tony

mandri and you you mentioned that as an intriguing part of the story Tony mandri

was was on the front of Sports Illustrated and he was called leading

into the draft the best offensive lineman prospect that ever lived mhm he

was 66 he was 330 lbs that was not normal back mostly like lean muscle too

muscle strong that that was not you know nowadays no one bats an eye over those

numbers that was not a that was not normal back then no that was several inches taller and you know 40 lbs muscle

more than a lot of guys and I even saw I saw a stat that in the 80s at some time

period there was only four players in the league over 300 lbs and now there's

over 400 players Refrigerator Perry and a handful of three four others and that

was it correct Tony mandri he was a can't miss absolute no doubt about it

offensive tackle uh I guess he was a tackle he was yeah and he was going to

be the best thing that ever play played on the line and did it turn out that way for the number two pick no it was a

complete bust they basically he was roed up the whole time and he was technically

not I mean from a technical standpoint he was not as good of a tackle that could have translated to the NFL better

and when he started going up against like the Reggie whites of the world and obviously Derek Thomas he stood no

chance yeah so in ' 88 or ' 89 somewhere in there I was in high school and I was writing a a speech about steroids you

had to kind of do a research paper type thing and give a speech about I picked steroid abuse in Pro Sports and I think

I ended up narrowing it down to pro football and I can't remember if that was in ' 89 when after people came out

and sort of suspected that was his deal or not but I know later on when the when when the story broke that he was on

roids it didn't surprise me at all cuz I had been reading about how they were abused for NFL lineman and so for so

mandri was the number two pick you want to talk about him while we're on the number two pick really quickly some stuff I found out about just it doesn't

do anything for me to just say the guy was a bust there's more to that story so the guy was 66 he was 330 people

suspected that maybe maybe the guy's on roids if you've seen the SI cover with

I'm wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a a a backwards cap on youd know what we're talking about

um he he came to Camp late that was problem number one he held out for his

contract back then they weren't automatic contracts he held out he didn't join his team until right

before uh Camp ended in the regular SE or in the the yeah the regular season

started so he was behind and he had been so dominant in college and what it turns

what he admitted to later after a lot of stuff happened was that yes he was on roids all the way through high school

and college and he actually claims that he quit taking steroids before the NFL

draft because he knew their standards for testing were so much more MH um

advanced than anything he had done in college and high school and he knew that he couldn't cheat like he did in college

and high school on any uh drug test and so he stopped well when he stopped he

lost a lot of strength and endurance and so four and he just wasn't physically the same guy for one thing um so he

shows up late he plays four years for the Packers

he does not start his first year he's so far behind mentally and he's off Theo

roids now so his strength is just average and they were talk among the Packers linemen of why is this guy we're

whipping this guy regularly what's the big deal with him so his reputation was ruined the day he stepped on the field

because he's getting blown up by everybody he played special team some

his rookie year and that was it um he started for the next two years and

he was they said there was no Pro Football Focus back then but by reputation alone among his own teammates

even he was categorized as average yeah he wasn't a dominant he wasn't the worst

but he wasn't dominant like he was in college whatsoever he was just a plug-in average so wasn't living up to his

contract is what that amounts to four years in when he's around the end of his

his rookie contract he gets concussed so badly in the preseason or in training

camp I can't remember he missed the entire season his concussion was so bad

which if you think about back then yeah for those standards that's really bad he

was out for the whole year and for the way they used to push guys into the play

and that's hard to believe M um he was 66 330 lb but he also run a four he ran

a 4.65 40 yard dash and at the combine he he bench pressed 225 lbs at the time

an unheard of 39 times and his Nick you know what his nickname was the

incredible bulk the incredible bulk that's on the cover of that's on that cover of SI I think he made another

cover or two he did after when it uh he turned out to be a bus they had a big cover with him and pads on it that said

the NFL's biggest bust yeah that had on it so four the fourth season um he

missed for concussion and I it's coming back to me I see a note that reminded me

so he missed the four fourth season his Fifth Season which would have been his final year of his contract the pack lost

interest and cut him Ron wolf had had enough and he cut him now he had a reputation for other things too uh

partying and and not focusing on what he was supposed to do so uh there's plenty of documentation about that but we don't

get on this we try not to just talk about negative stuff on the old podcast here we we try to appreciate what these

guys did and so he loses a year to concussion he gets cut this dude set out

for five years so there's a little bit of a Redemption story here with him he set out for Five Seasons and he got his

life back together he got sober he uh tried to get his body right um deal with

the concussion stuff and all that and he came back he came back for um after five

season think about that Five Seasons as an offens of lineman he came back and he played three additional Seasons with the

Colts so he played seven or eight year or he was under contract for seven or eight years however you want to look at

it um and when he came back with the Colts he once again had some injury

problems but um once again he was deemed as kind of just an average guy that you would dink draft in the middle of the

draft or end of the draft and plug him in there but he was never dominant never ever ever dominant he uh was an average

offensive lineman um funny footnote in history uh he

played you know where he played college ball I can't remember um I'm guessing

going to be like a big 10 school he played college ball at Michigan State yeah why why would you say you guess it

was a big 10 school that's a good guess why would you say that I mean that's just their reputation big Lin I me yeah

Wisconsin nebras he went to Michigan State and he was recruited there by their defensive coordinator who was a

dude named Nick Sabin yeah that's funny yeah that's a funny little footnote in history oh wouldn't he been their head

coach at the time no he later was their head coach oh that's right he went to TOA too he was their defensive

coordinator so that takes care of numbers one and two Troy aan went first to the Cowboys number two Green Bay

drafted Tony mandri out of Michigan State and we just told his story who was

number three Dylan well can't remember specifically was that uh Barry Barry Sanders the best

running back in the draft by far was Barry Sanders and of all time and Detroit was Detroit they needed all the

help they can get and they picked Barry Sanders um and like we said he came off

a Heisman Trophy season and a 2,000 yard 30 touchdown season as well um by the

way footnote also when I went to football camp at uh uh University of

Arkansas back then it was actually that year in ' 88 the summer we met their

strength coach and he was one of the biggest dudes I'd ever seen and that you know what his calling card claim to fame

was what he had just left Oklahoma State and he he told us straight up I'm the

guy that put those thighs on Barry Sanders and um he went on to coach or he

coached Thurman Thomas he coached Barry Sanders and he coached Barry Foster yeah and uh yeah he knew what he

was doing with the building a dude's lower body trust me so number three Detroit Lines Barry Sanders from

Oklahoma state that gets us to number four and it's time for a defensive player and by the way we're not going to

go through every pick but we're going to make special note of these for a reason so the fourth pick was you know defense

Dion or drick Thomas Derrick Thomas Derrick Thomas cool Derek Thomas uh came

from Alabama and he was uh just a t sacking machine he was just yeah he was

kind of like a Lawrence I mean well he's he truly is the closest thing that we've ever gotten to Lawrence Taylor and it's

it's a shame that he uh he ended up having to pass away early in his career

well early by most standards but yeah he was a he was genuinely the closest thing

to Lawrence Taylor he was a machine he was a machine he was a wrecking crew for sure and he uh you know there were he

was kind of one of those you hope he's a no doubter cuz he certainly looked like the part and sounded like it and everything and and he was the real deal

Derek Thomas A lot of people loved that guy for sure all right stay on the defensive side is number five and that

would be your guy d uh Dion Sanders who was drafted by the Falcons out of Florida State and um we're going to talk

about Dion some more later because I'm doing a whole I'm going to do a great athlete series and he'll be one of them

um Dion there's a funny story about him in the draft that always like because he

was at the combine and somebody was wanting to put him through this 2 and 1 half hour test and they just kind of

caught him in the hallway it wasn't a formal thing but they were like hey uh we we need you for two and and you know

they're busy 24 hours a day there they barely let them get any rest cuz they're constantly interviewing I think it was

the Giants oh yeah said hey we like you we like to talk to you and take this

test and it's going to take about 2 and 1 half hours and he said when do you Draft what pick do you

and they said whatever they said eight or n he goes dude I'm not even going to be there that late no thanks and kept

rolling cuz he knew he was going to be in the top five I mean you can make a case that Dion could have gone anywhere

from two to five really um so Dion gets drafted by the Falcons there's

no surprise there that he was the first um defensive back uh to get drafted not

a shocker there whatsoever so that's five picks mhm Troy Aman Tony

mandri Barry Sanders Derek Thomas and Deion Sanders how many of them made the

Hall of Fame Dylan uh four of them four of them made the Pro Football Hall of

Fame and there's no stretch like that to start the draft ever and some of the best at their position ever some of the

best at their positions ever and there's no no start to any draft that went that

well for four out of five teams um unbelievable let me give you a few

numbers on these guys before we move into some more notables uh Aman ended up

in six Pro bowls uh won three Super Bowls and was a Super Bowl MVP Hall of

Famer um Barry Sanders pro bowler Hall of Famer Derek Thomas pro bowler Hall of

Famer Dion I I can't even remember how many pro bowls he made but he was the

Hall of Famer as well and you know they weren't the only ones

here's what's super interesting about it is not only did four of the top five go

to the Hall of Fame there's another guy that was all the way down there at 20

and his name was Steve Atwater from the Arkansas Razer backs and the Broncos

made him the 20th pick and guess what he did he played in the Pro bow played in Pro bowls and he made the Hall of Fame

and how do you and I know that he made the Hall of Fame because we were there we were there Dylan and I were very

fortunate and and David and we met made a trip to Canton our only time we've ever done it to see Jimmy Johnson and

Steve Atwater and lots of other guys go into the Hall of Fame a few years ago

and it was worth every bit of the trip cuz that was just an awesome experience Steve Atwater one of the best safeties

you'll ever see in your life and and U we'll talk about him later because we're probably if I was a bet man I'd say

we're going to end up talking about a guy named Christian AO at some point on here so six guys in the top 20 made the

Hall of Fame let me give you some other notable names Dylan have you ever heard of a guy named Eric meta uh yep from

Arkansas no oh no my bad what was he do you know what he was he was from Texas but you know what he was famous for uh

no he was one of those running back receiver return guys he did everything and I loved him as a pro he played for

the Browns and he was he I wouldn't even say he was a uh who's The Desmond that

Desmond Howard that not Desmond Howard um who's the return guy that just went in uh Devon Hester Devon Hester he

wasn't that dominant But Eric mataf could do everything he could play any he could play anything that involved

catching or running with the football on offense and special teams he was he was a really really fun fun guy to watch um

Wayne Martin from Arkansas remember the guy I just told you was a defense defensive V and got um suspended from

the Cotton Bowl for Arkansas he went number 19 he was a pro bowler the Saints

picked up him on the 19th pick Eric MF went 13th to the Browns both of those

guys were pro bowlers the very next pick after Wayne Martin was Steve Atwater at number 20 here's some other names from

the same draft uh lest you wonder who else might have been involved Andre ryen mhm and

where what college did he go to Dylan I could not tell you he was a Michigan State guy and he got drafted first or

got drafted by the Colts and he was a pro bowler M there was another guy on this after that named Carell Lake M he

was a safety remember I told you UCLA had a lot of good players he was one of them he made the Pro Bowl he was number

34 at number 39 there was a guy who had a big imprint on NFL rushing statistics

historically and His Name Was Daryl Johnston from Syracuse and he opened up

most of the holes that EMT Smith ran through on the line for a long time and he was a pro bowler

um speaking of the Cowboys at number 57 there was another guy named Mark

stepnoski from pit Pit's known for some of their nasty lineman types too Mark

stepnowski to the Cowboys uh from pit uh a

center another Cowboy at number 85 Tony Tolbert he was a defensive end from UTP

he made the Pro Bowl so did stepnoski so did Daryl Johnson and at 132 there was a

guy named Dave megot who was Dave megot no idea Dave megot was what I sort of

just mentioned like the uh Eric meta mold Dave megot was a smaller uh running

back kind of a third down back we used to call him caught a lot of passes played in a lot of specialty situations

maybe Red Zone type things and caught a lot of passes out of the back field and he was a big part of uh you know

parcel's offense when he was with the Giants Dave megot smaller guy but Dave

megot pro bowler at pick number 132 so those are the biggest names that

I could find on the list I'm sure I missed a name or two but um that was a pretty big uh pretty big draft uh it's

it's hard to argue with uh six pro bowlers in the or six Hall of Famers in

the first 20 picks Arkansas going back to the the Arkansas

connection Arkansas had seven guys drafted you know if you think about really dominant College Programs right

now how many guys usually does and by the way the draft is not 12 rounds anymore it's seven it was 12 back then

how many guys does a a good Alabama Georgia or Clemson team nowadays put in the Pro uh put in the draft on average

anywhere from like five to 10 seven eight 10 yeah if it's a really good year

it's 10 six on the low side 10 or 11 on the high side so Arkansas was right there in that range of course with five

more rounds mhm Arkansas had seven people drafted and I since we're we have

a lot of Arkansas fans that listen uh Freddy childis the offensive uh guard or

tackle that we talked about earlier that was so big he was one of them there was a linebacker for Arkansas named Carrie

Owens who was drafted there was a defensive back a really good one that I remember named Richard Brothers that was

drafted their kickle kicker Kendall trainer was drafted and there was a um

there was another uh running back named Lal Harper or linebacker named Lal

Harper that was drafted also one two three four five

six um was Barry I guess Barry Foster was part of that as well or he would have been whenever he

got drafted May in the next year I can't remember but yeah so seven Razer backs obviously Atwater was one of them

um pretty good year for them as well um anything oh by the way the total out of

all the players drafted the total number of pro bowlers was 24 to go along with

the six Hall of Famers and honestly the Pro Bowl to me isn't the gold standard anymore it's just a fan popularity

contest but back then it carried a lot more weight um when you made the pro bowls so that was that's kind of a sort

of a Kodak moment quick look at what happened in the draft of 89 so I would

say the little footnotes are most interesting about it like amegan showing up and being the first player that

really showed up and then starting the trend now the the Juniors being eligible because of Barry Sanders is cool and

then just the volume of pro bowlers and Hall of Famers that were in there and then the little personal connection

about you and I get actually see Steve Atwater go in and him being a former Razer back that's pretty cool too

um what else do you want to note or remember or by the way Tony mandri

totally from what I can gather he totally changed his life around and I think he's a uh he owns his own

multimedia company now where he got into photography and camera work and stuff after his uh playing career and he moved

I want to say Arizona or California somewhere and went into business for himself and I think he's written a book

where he basically says hey I screwed up I wasn't the right kind of mentally I

didn't handle this right at the time and didn't do things the right way but U apparently he's turned his life around

which is which is really good to hear yep um any I know I did most of the talking but you do know a shockingly lot

of information about stuff from back then cuz you're you you're good about your

YouTube and reading stuff so anything else you got got about it the 1989 NFL

draft well uh I will tell you how it goes when we talk about the 83 cuz some

of these old guys want to talk about it because what happened in the 83 draft oh a lot of quarterbacks yeah um all right

Dylan I appreciate you helping your old man out on on a couple of uh episodes here and we will pick another topic and

get back together soon all right good all right bye thank you for joining us on genx classic Sports where Nostalgia

meets the of the game tune in next time for more insightful discussions and memorable moments brought to you by Pine

Street Productions until then stay passionate about sports and keep the memories alive

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