Being the first overall selection in the NFL draft is reserved for only the best of the best college football stars. That’s exactly what Peyton Manning was when he went No. 1 in the 1998 draft out of Tennessee football.
Is he the greatest player to ever get selected with the opening pick, though?
ESPN’s Ben Solak thinks so.
The national NFL analyst went through all 262 picks of the draft and named the best player to ever be taken at each selection. The Vols star, turned Colts and Broncos champion, topped the list.
“Fourteen Hall of Famers have been selected with the first overall pick since the draft began in 1936, including Bruce Smith, Orlando Pace, John Elway, Terry Bradshaw and Earl Campbell. (By the time Myles Garrett is done, we’ll be well on our way to the 15th.),” Solak wrote. “As such, selecting a winner for the best No. 1 pick ever is the splitting of fine hairs, but Peyton Manning gets my nod. Five MVPs, two Super Bowl championships (with two different teams) and still-standing records for single-season passing touchdowns (55) and single-season passing yardage (5,477) is an impossible résumé to knock.”
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Manning played for the Vols from 1994-97, where he became the Heisman Trophy runner-up in a controversial decision. In that final year, he was a consensus All-American, SEC Player of the Year, Quarterback of the Year and SEC Male Athlete of the Year.
In the NFL, Manning went on to win two Super Bowls and was named the MVP of the first. He won a trio of regular-season MVPs, was a 10-time All-Pro selection and has his number retired by both the Colts and Broncos. As a result, you don’t have to search too hard to find people who have him as the greatest football player ever.
He isn’t the only former Vol to earn a spot on ESPN’s rankings, either. The greatest player to ever be picked at No. 69 was tight end Jason Witten. He played for Tennessee from 2000-02 while grabbing a First-Team All-SEC honor before going pro. He carved out a terrific career with the Cowboys as an 11-time Pro Bowler.
At pick No. 226, recent Tennessee lineman Trey Smith gets the nod. He played for UT from 2017-20 while being named a three-time All-SEC member. After an inexplicable slip in the draft, Smith is already putting together an elite career with the Chiefs. There, he’s won two Super Bowl titles and is coming off his first Pro Bowl season.
