NFL draft: History shows stars are hard to find at No. 25 overall
The odds say the Bears won’t find a superstar with the 25th overall pick Thursday night.
History agrees.
No Pro Football Hall of Famer has ever been chosen No. 25 in the draft. Only 11 players picked No. 25 overall since the NFL-AFL merger have made the Pro Bowl. Of those, only five went more than twice — receiver Stanley Morgan (drafted in 1977), defensive lineman and onetime Bear Ted Washington (1991), linebacker Jon Beason (2007), cornerback Xavier Rhodes (2013) and center Tyler Linderbaum (2022). Linderbaum, whose rookie contract ended in March, became the highest-paid center in the history of the sport when the Raiders gave him a three-year, $81 million deal in March.
Linebacker Dont’a Hightower, class of 2012, won three Super Bowls with the Patriots. Receiver Santonio Holmes, who was named MVP of Super Bowl XLIII with the Steelers and spent the last season of his career with the Bears, was picked in 2006.
Safety Jabril Peppers and quarterback Tim Tebow were college superstars who didn’t turn into serviceable pros. Jaxson Dart will soon find out whether he belongs on that list, too — the Giants traded up with the Texans to draft the quarterback last year. He started 12 games and finished fourth in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.
The Jaguars took running back Travis Etienne 25th in 2022. Since then, he’s run for 3,798 yards, the 10th-most in the NFL. Receiver Brandon Aiyuk was picked in the same spot a year before him — and finished seventh in the NFL in receiving yards in his third season. Holywood Brown, the 25th choice in 2019, had 1,008 receiving yards in his third year with the Ravens before bouncing to the Cardinals, Chiefs and now Eagles.
Thursday will mark the first time in the modern era of the draft that the Bears have picked 25th.