NFL Draft’s 10 biggest steals of all-time, ranked We all love draft-day steals.
Sure, the players that come off the board at the top of the draft arrive with much fanfare. But part of the beauty of the NFL Draft process is finding that “diamond in the rough,” whether players from lower levels or prospects that maybe never fully developed at the college level, but showed flashes of brilliance along the way.
Those steals come every year.
Here are the ten biggest steals in NFL Draft history, ahead of the 2026 installment.
Brock Purdy was not just the last quarterback taken in the 2022 NFL Draft (where eight quarterbacks went ahead of him) but he was the last player selected overall, coming off the board at No. 262 to earn the title “Mr. Irrelevant.”
All he has done since then is guide the San Francisco 49ers to multiple playoff appearances, including in his rookie season, and lead the 49ers to one Super Bowl appearance since taking over as the team’s starting quarterback. Purdy and the 49ers were decimated by injuries a season ago, but still advanced to the NFC Divisional Round, losing to the eventual Super Bowl champions.
Jason Kelce was an undersized center coming out of Cincinnati, who fell to the 191st pick overall as the fourth center drafted.
But over his NFL career Kelce put together a Hall of Fame resume, earning six First-Team All-Pro selections. Kelce was also part of the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles team that shocked the New England Patriots to win Super Bowl LII.
Certainly his career has entered a new stage, as Kelce shows up almost any time you turn on a television, and the podcast he co-hosts with his brother Travis has transcended the sporting world. But before he became a celebrity, he was one of the biggest NFL Draft steals.
Before the NFL Draft shifted to the current seven-round format, the number of rounds would often reach into the double digits.
That class is known for the quarterbacks that came off the board in the first round, a list of names that includes John Elway, Jim Kelly, Ken O’Brien, and Dan Marino. That draft lasted a whopping 12 rounds.
And coming off the board in the eighth round, at pick 203, was a defensive end out of Tennessee State. Richard Dent would go on to produce a Hall of Fame career, amassing 137.5 sacks over his time in the league. That currently places him 11th on the all-time list. Dent also helped the Chicago Bears win Super Bowl XX, where he was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after recording 1.5 sacks, forcing a pair of fumbles, and breaking up a pass.
While pick 203 would come off the board in the sixth round of the modern draft, due to compensatory selections and the number of teams picking in each round, a player with that resume would still be a steal even by today’s standards.
Again, the draft looked very different in 1955. That year, the draft lasted a staggering 30 rounds.
Imagine writing a 30-round mock draft? But I digress …
Coming off the board in the ninth round, at pick No. 102, was Louisville quarterback Johnny Unitas. Unitas would go on to become one of the greatest players in league history, winning three NFL championships, earning NFL MVP honors three times, and securing a win in Super Bowl V. Unitas also secured five First-Team All-Pro honors, and still stands among league leaders in several statistical categories, despite playing in a completely different era of football.
In 1960, he set a record for the most consecutive games with a touchdown pass, one that did not fall until Drew Brees eclipsed that mark during the 2012 NFL season.
21 running backs came off the board during the 1995 NFL Draft starting with Penn State’s Ki-Jana Carter, who was the first player selected.
Terrell Davis was the 18th RB selected that year, coming in the sixth round at No. 196 overall.
Still, Davis put together a legendary three-year start to his career that might be one of the best stretches ever from a running back. He ran for 1,117 yards during his rookie season, increasing that number to 1,538 during the 1996 campaign before leading the NFL with 2,008 yards during 1998. During that 1997 season he ran for 15 touchdowns, followed by 19 TD runs the following year.
Both times he led the league in that statistic.
Davis was named league MVP in 1998, and was a First-Team All-Pro in each of those three seasons. His performance in Super Bowl XXXII — where he endured a brutal migraine to run for 157 yards and three touchdowns, securing MVP honors — stands out as one of the truly legendary Super Bowl performances in league history.
He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
Tight end is notoriously a difficult position to evaluate when it comes to the NFL Draft. What NFL tight ends are asked to do in the league varies greatly from what they are asked to do in the college game.
During the 1990 NFL Draft, which lasted 12 rounds, 18 tight ends were drafted. Shannon Sharpe, out of Savannah State, came off the board as the tenth TE selected, when his name was called at pick No. 192 overall, and in the seventh round.
All he did in the league was haul in 815 career catches for 10,060 receiving yards and 62 touchdowns.
Sharpe also secured four First-Team All-Pro selections — including three consecutive picks from 1996 through 1998 — and was named to eight Pro Bowls. A member of the 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class, Sharpe is still considered one of the best tight ends in league history.
Roger Staubach’s status as a draft steal certainly requires some context.
Staubach became a household name during the 1963 college football season, where he led Navy to the Cotton Bowl at the end of the season against No. 1 Texas, with a chance to win the national championship. Although Navy lost that game, Staubach still secured the Heisman Trophy that season, and stands as the last Navy player to secure those honors.
While the Dallas Cowboys drafted him in the tenth round of the 1964 NFL Draft as a “futures” selection, they did so knowing Staubach had four years of military service awaiting him. After serving his time, including one year spent in South Vietnam during the Vietnam war as part of the supply chain (due to his colorblindness) he joined Dallas for the 1969 season.
He took over as the Cowboys’ starting quarterback soon enough, and during his time in Dallas, Staubach won two Super Bowls (VI and XII) and was named MVP of Super Bowl VI. He was the league’s Man of the Year in 1978, and a Second-Team All-Pro selection in 1971. He was also a six-time Pro Bowl selection, a member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team for the 1970s, and he was named to the NFL’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
The 1956 NFL Draft lasted 30 rounds, coming at a time when there were 12 teams in the league.
In the 17th round, the Green Bay Packers made Bart Starr the ninth quarterback selected, and the 200th player picked overall.
But Starr eventually took over as the team’s starting quarterback during the 1959 campaign, under new head coach Vince Lombardi, and he never looked back. He helped the Packers to an appearance in the 1960 NFL Championship Game against the Philadelphia Eagles, and while they lost that game, Starr and the Packers won a title the following year.
He was also the winner of the first two Super Bowl MVP awards, as he led the Packers to victories in both Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. He was a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 1977.
In his fourth season, 1959, new head coach Vince Lombardi named him the starting quarterback. The next year, he was named to the Pro Bowl for the first time and led the Packers to the NFL championship game, though they lost to the Eagles. In 1961, he earned a second straight Pro Bowl nod and won his first championship.
Starr went on to win four more NFL championships as the Packers’ starter and led Green Bay to wins in the first two Super Bowls after the 1966 and 1967 seasons. Starr was the winner of the first two Super Bowl MVP awards. He was also the NFL MVP in 1966 and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.
Despite a legendary collegiate career at Notre Dame, including a win in the famous “Chicken Soup” game, Joe Montana fell to the end of the third round of the 1977 NFL Draft, where he was pick No. 82 overall.
But he landed in San Francisco with Bill Walsh, and the rest is history. That history includes four Super Bowl wins, two NFL MVP awards, three first-team All-Pro nods, and eight Pro Bowls. Montana is known for the game-winning drive at the end of Super Bowl XXIII, as well as “The Catch,” his completion to Dwight Clark to cap off a win over the Dallas Cowboys in the 1982 NFC Championship Game.
You know the story by now.
Pick No. 199, coming in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft. A surprise member of the New England Patriots roster despite beginning the 2000 season as the team’s fourth quarterback.
Then a hit on starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe by Mo Lewis during the 2001 NFL season that changed not just Patriots’ history, but NFL history.
Seven Super Bowl titles later, only Canton awaits.
#NFL #Drafts #biggest #steals #alltime #ranked
We all love draft-day steals.
Sure, the players that come off the board at the top of the draft arrive with much fanfare. But part of the beauty of the NFL Draft process is finding that “diamond in the rough,” whether players from lower levels or prospects that maybe never fully developed at the college level, but showed flashes of brilliance along the way.
Those steals come every year.
Here are the ten biggest steals in NFL Draft history, ahead of the 2026 installment.
Brock Purdy was not just the last quarterback taken in the 2022 NFL Draft (where eight quarterbacks went ahead of him) but he was the last player selected overall, coming off the board at No. 262 to earn the title “Mr. Irrelevant.”
All he has done since then is guide the San Francisco 49ers to multiple playoff appearances, including in his rookie season, and lead the 49ers to one Super Bowl appearance since taking over as the team’s starting quarterback. Purdy and the 49ers were decimated by injuries a season ago, but still advanced to the NFC Divisional Round, losing to the eventual Super Bowl champions.
Jason Kelce was an undersized center coming out of Cincinnati, who fell to the 191st pick overall as the fourth center drafted.
But over his NFL career Kelce put together a Hall of Fame resume, earning six First-Team All-Pro selections. Kelce was also part of the 2017 Philadelphia Eagles team that shocked the New England Patriots to win Super Bowl LII.
Certainly his career has entered a new stage, as Kelce shows up almost any time you turn on a television, and the podcast he co-hosts with his brother Travis has transcended the sporting world. But before he became a celebrity, he was one of the biggest NFL Draft steals.
Before the NFL Draft shifted to the current seven-round format, the number of rounds would often reach into the double digits.
That class is known for the quarterbacks that came off the board in the first round, a list of names that includes John Elway, Jim Kelly, Ken O’Brien, and Dan Marino. That draft lasted a whopping 12 rounds.
And coming off the board in the eighth round, at pick 203, was a defensive end out of Tennessee State. Richard Dent would go on to produce a Hall of Fame career, amassing 137.5 sacks over his time in the league. That currently places him 11th on the all-time list. Dent also helped the Chicago Bears win Super Bowl XX, where he was named the game’s Most Valuable Player after recording 1.5 sacks, forcing a pair of fumbles, and breaking up a pass.
While pick 203 would come off the board in the sixth round of the modern draft, due to compensatory selections and the number of teams picking in each round, a player with that resume would still be a steal even by today’s standards.
Again, the draft looked very different in 1955. That year, the draft lasted a staggering 30 rounds.
Imagine writing a 30-round mock draft? But I digress …
Coming off the board in the ninth round, at pick No. 102, was Louisville quarterback Johnny Unitas. Unitas would go on to become one of the greatest players in league history, winning three NFL championships, earning NFL MVP honors three times, and securing a win in Super Bowl V. Unitas also secured five First-Team All-Pro honors, and still stands among league leaders in several statistical categories, despite playing in a completely different era of football.
In 1960, he set a record for the most consecutive games with a touchdown pass, one that did not fall until Drew Brees eclipsed that mark during the 2012 NFL season.
21 running backs came off the board during the 1995 NFL Draft starting with Penn State’s Ki-Jana Carter, who was the first player selected.
Terrell Davis was the 18th RB selected that year, coming in the sixth round at No. 196 overall.
Still, Davis put together a legendary three-year start to his career that might be one of the best stretches ever from a running back. He ran for 1,117 yards during his rookie season, increasing that number to 1,538 during the 1996 campaign before leading the NFL with 2,008 yards during 1998. During that 1997 season he ran for 15 touchdowns, followed by 19 TD runs the following year.
Both times he led the league in that statistic.
Davis was named league MVP in 1998, and was a First-Team All-Pro in each of those three seasons. His performance in Super Bowl XXXII — where he endured a brutal migraine to run for 157 yards and three touchdowns, securing MVP honors — stands out as one of the truly legendary Super Bowl performances in league history.
He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1997.
Tight end is notoriously a difficult position to evaluate when it comes to the NFL Draft. What NFL tight ends are asked to do in the league varies greatly from what they are asked to do in the college game.
During the 1990 NFL Draft, which lasted 12 rounds, 18 tight ends were drafted. Shannon Sharpe, out of Savannah State, came off the board as the tenth TE selected, when his name was called at pick No. 192 overall, and in the seventh round.
All he did in the league was haul in 815 career catches for 10,060 receiving yards and 62 touchdowns.
Sharpe also secured four First-Team All-Pro selections — including three consecutive picks from 1996 through 1998 — and was named to eight Pro Bowls. A member of the 2011 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class, Sharpe is still considered one of the best tight ends in league history.
Roger Staubach’s status as a draft steal certainly requires some context.
Staubach became a household name during the 1963 college football season, where he led Navy to the Cotton Bowl at the end of the season against No. 1 Texas, with a chance to win the national championship. Although Navy lost that game, Staubach still secured the Heisman Trophy that season, and stands as the last Navy player to secure those honors.
While the Dallas Cowboys drafted him in the tenth round of the 1964 NFL Draft as a “futures” selection, they did so knowing Staubach had four years of military service awaiting him. After serving his time, including one year spent in South Vietnam during the Vietnam war as part of the supply chain (due to his colorblindness) he joined Dallas for the 1969 season.
He took over as the Cowboys’ starting quarterback soon enough, and during his time in Dallas, Staubach won two Super Bowls (VI and XII) and was named MVP of Super Bowl VI. He was the league’s Man of the Year in 1978, and a Second-Team All-Pro selection in 1971. He was also a six-time Pro Bowl selection, a member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team for the 1970s, and he was named to the NFL’s 100th Anniversary All-Time Team.
The 1956 NFL Draft lasted 30 rounds, coming at a time when there were 12 teams in the league.
In the 17th round, the Green Bay Packers made Bart Starr the ninth quarterback selected, and the 200th player picked overall.
But Starr eventually took over as the team’s starting quarterback during the 1959 campaign, under new head coach Vince Lombardi, and he never looked back. He helped the Packers to an appearance in the 1960 NFL Championship Game against the Philadelphia Eagles, and while they lost that game, Starr and the Packers won a title the following year.
He was also the winner of the first two Super Bowl MVP awards, as he led the Packers to victories in both Super Bowl I and Super Bowl II. He was a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 1977.
In his fourth season, 1959, new head coach Vince Lombardi named him the starting quarterback. The next year, he was named to the Pro Bowl for the first time and led the Packers to the NFL championship game, though they lost to the Eagles. In 1961, he earned a second straight Pro Bowl nod and won his first championship.
Starr went on to win four more NFL championships as the Packers’ starter and led Green Bay to wins in the first two Super Bowls after the 1966 and 1967 seasons. Starr was the winner of the first two Super Bowl MVP awards. He was also the NFL MVP in 1966 and was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977.
Despite a legendary collegiate career at Notre Dame, including a win in the famous “Chicken Soup” game, Joe Montana fell to the end of the third round of the 1977 NFL Draft, where he was pick No. 82 overall.
But he landed in San Francisco with Bill Walsh, and the rest is history. That history includes four Super Bowl wins, two NFL MVP awards, three first-team All-Pro nods, and eight Pro Bowls. Montana is known for the game-winning drive at the end of Super Bowl XXIII, as well as “The Catch,” his completion to Dwight Clark to cap off a win over the Dallas Cowboys in the 1982 NFC Championship Game.
You know the story by now.
Pick No. 199, coming in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft. A surprise member of the New England Patriots roster despite beginning the 2000 season as the team’s fourth quarterback.
Then a hit on starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe by Mo Lewis during the 2001 NFL season that changed not just Patriots’ history, but NFL history.
Seven Super Bowl titles later, only Canton awaits.
![The Red Sox proved clutch isn’t real until it saves your season “And I love that dirty water … Boston you’re my ho—” oh, whoops, didn’t see you there. I was, uh, yeah I was celebrating the turnaround of the 2026 Boston Red Sox, I didn’t think I’d have to work today jeez. (takes off hat and Roman Anthony jersey) Oh, you want to know about the streak? Okay, let me get my glasses and then we can talk.(ahem) The Boston Red Sox are on an absolute tear. They’ve gone 20-3 since June 25, won 15 straight games to tie their franchise record streak from the 1940s (!) and have turned around basically every aspect of their 2026 disasterclass to wrest control of the third American League Wild Card spot from the jaws of a confusing game of Musical Chairs/Duck Duck Goose. How on earth did we get here, and what does it all mean?Since they began their fire-breathing rampage through everything in their path, the Red Sox have essentially doubled the offensive output of four players without seeing a major drop-off from anyone they were counting on for runs. Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs explains it all really well here, and has a nice table that shows how four guys — Willson Contreras, Andruw Monasterio, Masataka Yoshida and Caleb Durbin — have seen dramatic spikes in their wRC+ and associated power metrics since June 25.That list doesn’t even really account for the impact of Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela, who have been less consistent but defensively elite with some huge hits in big spots for both. Probably the most dramatic moment of the streak (tied with Caleb Durbin’s home run) was Abreu’s impossible go-ahead two-run shot against the Tampa Bay Rays after Boston had fallen down three. Baseball is funny like that; consistency wins divisions, but at the end of the day, when you need a home run right now… someone needs to hit one right now.In short, this team was “clutch,” a dark word in baseball given that clutch sorta doesn’t exist for teams. Well, it does, and we have clutch stats to back it up: in the last 30 days, the Boston Red Sox are by far the most clutch team (which just calculates how much win probability you add in high-leverage spots) with 4.27 Clutch (wow that sounds weird to say). That is an insane number, and more than doubles Detroit at number two.But for the whole season, Boston has been the opposite of clutch; distinctively, un-clutch, one could say, at -1.31, which 24th in the Majors for the full season which includes this streak. And there’s no evidence that certain teams are “clutch” month over month, year over year or that clutch performances can be used as predictive for future clutch play. Jeff Sullivan wrote a great breakdown of this data in 2018, and I’ll quote from his piece here to illustrate the point:“There’s no historical reason to believe [clutch is] a trait. It’s all just a collection of things that have happened. Things at important times that have wound up deciding ballgames.”That is, in essence, what Boston’s 15-game win streak was about. “Things at important times” decided a number of close ballgames in a row for one team. And while it should not be used to say anything about the 2026 Boston Red Sox being a clutch team (they literally aren’t, see above), the fact that they were clutch for 30 days was the difference between the 2026 season sitting at the bottom of the Boston Harbor to rot for eternity with that tea from 1773 and becoming a buyer at the trade deadline. They brought a crane and fished the season out.For the 2026 Red Sox, clutch does exist; maybe not as a trait, but as an event that happened and is perhaps still happening that had a seismic impact on their destiny, relationship with the city and with each other. “Things at important times” may not be something we can predict, but it still feels pretty darn awesome when they happen. Boston needed exactly that type of run (or at least something close to it) to save a season in which absolutely nothing has gone right. And they did it!Could we have predicted it? Nope! At least not to that extent — I’ve written a lot about these Red Sox, and while they were basically always better than their putrid 32-46 record, the production they’re getting out of Durbin, Yoshida and Monasterio was not the recipe for success I had in the recipe book.If we’re being cold and calculated, Boston will need more talent in this lineup if they’re going to oh I don’t know win the World Series or something ridiculous. Roman Anthony will need to return from the longest and most impossibly torturous Red Sox injury saga since peak Chris Sale, and Garrett Crochet will need to be back for the postseason.Do the Red Sox believe that can happen? If they do, then buyers will be buying. #Red #Sox #proved #clutch #isnt #real #saves #season](https://i1.wp.com/platform.sbnation.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/07/gettyimages-2286960459.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C4.1829728399691%2C100%2C78.52202865778&w=1200&ssl=1 "The Red Sox proved clutch isn’t real until it saves your season “And I love that dirty water … Boston you’re my ho—” oh, whoops, didn’t see you there. I was, uh, yeah I was celebrating the turnaround of the 2026 Boston Red Sox, I didn’t think I’d have to work today jeez. (takes off hat and Roman Anthony jersey) Oh, you want to know about the streak? Okay, let me get my glasses and then we can talk.(ahem) The Boston Red Sox are on an absolute tear. They’ve gone 20-3 since June 25, won 15 straight games to tie their franchise record streak from the 1940s (!) and have turned around basically every aspect of their 2026 disasterclass to wrest control of the third American League Wild Card spot from the jaws of a confusing game of Musical Chairs/Duck Duck Goose. How on earth did we get here, and what does it all mean?Since they began their fire-breathing rampage through everything in their path, the Red Sox have essentially doubled the offensive output of four players without seeing a major drop-off from anyone they were counting on for runs. Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs explains it all really well here, and has a nice table that shows how four guys — Willson Contreras, Andruw Monasterio, Masataka Yoshida and Caleb Durbin — have seen dramatic spikes in their wRC+ and associated power metrics since June 25.That list doesn’t even really account for the impact of Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela, who have been less consistent but defensively elite with some huge hits in big spots for both. Probably the most dramatic moment of the streak (tied with Caleb Durbin’s home run) was Abreu’s impossible go-ahead two-run shot against the Tampa Bay Rays after Boston had fallen down three. Baseball is funny like that; consistency wins divisions, but at the end of the day, when you need a home run right now… someone needs to hit one right now.In short, this team was “clutch,” a dark word in baseball given that clutch sorta doesn’t exist for teams. Well, it does, and we have clutch stats to back it up: in the last 30 days, the Boston Red Sox are by far the most clutch team (which just calculates how much win probability you add in high-leverage spots) with 4.27 Clutch (wow that sounds weird to say). That is an insane number, and more than doubles Detroit at number two.But for the whole season, Boston has been the opposite of clutch; distinctively, un-clutch, one could say, at -1.31, which 24th in the Majors for the full season which includes this streak. And there’s no evidence that certain teams are “clutch” month over month, year over year or that clutch performances can be used as predictive for future clutch play. Jeff Sullivan wrote a great breakdown of this data in 2018, and I’ll quote from his piece here to illustrate the point:“There’s no historical reason to believe [clutch is] a trait. It’s all just a collection of things that have happened. Things at important times that have wound up deciding ballgames.”That is, in essence, what Boston’s 15-game win streak was about. “Things at important times” decided a number of close ballgames in a row for one team. And while it should not be used to say anything about the 2026 Boston Red Sox being a clutch team (they literally aren’t, see above), the fact that they were clutch for 30 days was the difference between the 2026 season sitting at the bottom of the Boston Harbor to rot for eternity with that tea from 1773 and becoming a buyer at the trade deadline. They brought a crane and fished the season out.For the 2026 Red Sox, clutch does exist; maybe not as a trait, but as an event that happened and is perhaps still happening that had a seismic impact on their destiny, relationship with the city and with each other. “Things at important times” may not be something we can predict, but it still feels pretty darn awesome when they happen. Boston needed exactly that type of run (or at least something close to it) to save a season in which absolutely nothing has gone right. And they did it!Could we have predicted it? Nope! At least not to that extent — I’ve written a lot about these Red Sox, and while they were basically always better than their putrid 32-46 record, the production they’re getting out of Durbin, Yoshida and Monasterio was not the recipe for success I had in the recipe book.If we’re being cold and calculated, Boston will need more talent in this lineup if they’re going to oh I don’t know win the World Series or something ridiculous. Roman Anthony will need to return from the longest and most impossibly torturous Red Sox injury saga since peak Chris Sale, and Garrett Crochet will need to be back for the postseason.Do the Red Sox believe that can happen? If they do, then buyers will be buying. #Red #Sox #proved #clutch #isnt #real #saves #season")
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