Packers team historian Cliff Christl has assembled an oral history series of the NFL Draft, highlighting significant and noteworthy years as a prelude to Green Bay hosting the 2025 draft in late April. New installments will be posted most weekdays. For access to the full series thus far, click here.
1937
The second NFL Draft was held on Dec. 12, 1936, at the Hotel Lincoln in New York. It was expanded to 10 rounds, one more than in the first year.
The nine team owners also agreed to place the names of at least 100 eligible players on a board in the room and have the league president make the choices for a 10th team. The league was planning to add a 10th member before the 1937 season.
Accordingly, NFL president Joe Carr selected 10 players for a yet-to-be-named team. Those players were subsequently assigned to the Cleveland Rams, when they were admitted to the league on Feb. 12, 1937.
Sammy Baugh was slingin' passes the day of the draft
On draft day, Texas Christian's 'Slingin' Sammy Baugh wasn't anxiously sitting by a telephone somewhere awaiting a call from the team that selected him. The Sweetwater, Texas, product was gearing up for a 2 p.m. (PST) kickoff at San Francisco's Kezar Stadium. The draft meeting had started at 1 p.m. (EST).
Draft day happened to fall on the day of TCU's biggest game of the season, a matchup with heavily favored Santa Clara, the last unbeaten and untied team in the country.
The still Boston Redskins – they'd move to Washington, D.C., two months later – selected Baugh with the sixth overall pick that day, and he would turn out to be the prize choice in the second NFL Draft.
Unaware, in all likelihood, that he already had been drafted, Baugh led TCU to a 9-0 victory over Santa Clara. As a single-wing tailback, Baugh completed four passes covering 63 yards in five plays and ran for four yards on the other during TCU's second-quarter touchdown drive and then completed two passes for 35 yards to set up its third-quarter field goal.
That night in San Francisco, TCU was invited to play Marquette University in the New Year's Day Cotton Bowl. Marquette, which had finished the regular season 7-1, had accepted a bid to play in what was the first Cotton Bowl two days earlier.
Baugh would star again when TCU beat Marquette, 16-6, and then yet again eight months later when the College All-Stars upset the defending champion Green Bay Packers, 6-0, before a crowd of 84,500 at Chicago's Soldier Field. That game's only score came on a 47-yard touchdown pass from Baugh to end Gaynell Tinsley, second-round draft choice of the Chicago Cardinals.
As a rookie, Baugh also led Washington to its first NFL championship with a 28-21 victory over the Chicago Bears.
Dutch Meyer, coach at TCU from 1934-52, on Baugh before the Santa Clara game (San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 12, 1936): "I always rate my backs on several departments of play, and Baugh is positively the greatest ballplayer I've ever seen. Sam's a great passer, undoubtedly the best in the country. He's an excellent punter and an excellent safety man. His defensive play is above par. Baugh also is a mighty fine field general and a gambler from the word go."
Meyer (College Football U.S.A. 1869-1971: Official Book of the National Football Foundation, by John McCallum & Charles Pearson, 1972): "(Baugh) took almost no time to wind up, and he shot straight from the shoulder. All action, no loss of motion."
Buck Shaw, coach of Santa Clara and later coach of the Philadelphia Eagles when they won the 1960 NFL championship, on using a 5-3-2-1 defense rather than what was then the standard six- or seven-man line against Baugh (Sacramento Bee, Dec. 15, 1936): "If we played them again tomorrow, that's exactly the defense I'd use again. I figured that Baugh would probably connect often enough to score at least one touchdown and prepared a defense I'd hoped would outscore them. … In the final analysis, Sammy Baugh beat us with his brilliant punting, which was far more important than his passing."
Clark Shaughnessy, father of the modern T-formation and winner of 149 games in 31 seasons as a college coach (College Football U.S.A 1869-1971): "Baugh's passes were usually short, but what precision. The same went for his punting. Once I saw him kick in practice from midfield and the ball actually landed in a bucket, placed in one of the corners."
Curly Lambeau, then heading into his 18th NFL season as coach of the Packers following the College All-Star Game (Milwaukee Journal, Sept. 2, 1937): "Without qualification I nominate Sammy Baugh as the greatest passer we have ever faced. He was superb. Never have we had to face anybody who could spot a receiver as quickly as he and never have we faced anybody who could get rid of the ball as quickly as he. In the final analysis, I think nobody will disagree with me when I say he provided the margin of difference."
Marquette's Ray "Buzz" Buivid: A better prospect than Baugh?
Although Baugh's pro football career lasted 16 seasons, 14 more than Ray Buivid's, it was Buivid, a triple-threat back at Marquette, who was drafted first. Buivid, who grew up in Port Washington, Wis., was selected by the Chicago Cardinals third overall, three spots before Baugh. Thereupon, the Cardinals traded Buivid's rights before the day was over to the Bears for second-year tailback George Grosvenor, whose rights were still held by the Bears, although he had played in nine games with the Cardinals during the 1936 season.
At Marquette, Buivid was listed as the left halfback in what coach Frank Murray referred to as an offense with no adherence to a particular system. His attack included wide-open, shoot-the-works plays set up by single- and double-flanker sets, as well as plays from single-wing, Notre Dame Box and short-punt formations.
On one hand, Buivid was considered a better runner than Baugh. On the other hand, Buivid used more of a windup than Baugh as a passer and also tended to throw more fastballs, even on quick flips, than Baugh.
Ten days before the draft, Buivid (6-1, 190) had finished third and Baugh (6-2, 185) fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting. A week before the draft, the Associated Press All-America team was announced, and the two halfbacks were Buivid and another triple-threat back, Clarence "Ace" Parker (5-11, 175) of Duke. Baugh made second team.
At around the same time, when NFL coaches were asked to choose an All-America team by the North American Newspaper Alliance, they chose Baugh as their quarterback and Buivid as a halfback. Despite that, their consensus No. 1 back and the eventual No. 1 choice in the draft was Sam Francis.
A pile-driving fullback at Nebraska, Francis (6-0, 207) also drew praise for his booming left-footed punts and long left-handed passes. George Halas of the Bears rated Baugh, Buivid and Francis as the top backs. Boston Redskins coach Ray Flaherty split his vote for best back between Francis and Buivid.
University of Detroit coach Gus Dorais, a native of Chippewa Falls, Wis., and college football's first famous passer when he played at Notre Dame with Knute Rockne, on preparing to play Buivid when he was a sophomore (Detroit Free Press, Nov. 31, 1934): "Buivid, Buivid, Buivid. It seems they have a player named Buivid. That's all I can see in these (scouting) reports."
Jack Ryan, former football coach at both Marquette and Wisconsin after watching Buivid lead the then Golden Avalanche to a 12-6 victory over the Badgers (Milwaukee Sentinel, Oct. 4, 1936): "Buivid is my all-American left halfback on what I saw today."
Alan Gould, author of the story on the AP All-America team (Dec. 5, 1936): "Buzz Buivid, an iron-man who missed only 16 minutes of eight games set the pace for Marquette all season. Buivid belied his reputation as a passing specialist by doing most of the blocking, much of the secondary tackling and a good share of the ball-carrying for the Golden Avalanche."
As it turned out, when Dorais coached the College All-Stars with both Baugh and Buivid on his roster, it was Baugh who clearly made a more favorable impression on him. Confirmation of that came when Buivid never got off the bench against the Packers.
Soon after, Buivid also made the mistake of signing with the New York Yankees of the second American Football League, then its second and final season. He played two games with them, claimed he was supposed to be paid $150 per game and received only $20, and jumped to the Bears.
With the Bears seeking to dethrone the NFL champion Packers, Buivid hardly played until the final regular-season game when he threw five touchdown passes in a 42-28 victory over the Cardinals. After Buivid saw limited action again in 1938, he went into the insurance business.
The lure of baseball
The two tailbacks in the 1937 draft who wound up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame – Baugh and Parker – both flirted with playing professional baseball. They weren't alone among pro football's best passers back then, and that was no coincidence, according to Lambeau.
Lambeau (Spalding's Official National Football League Guide, 1939): "Men who have played baseball – that is, learned to throw a baseball correctly – usually make better football forward passers than those who haven't been trained in the diamond sport. (Arnie) Herber, Baugh, Ace Parker of Brooklyn, Dixie Howell, who formerly played with Washington; Riley Smith of the Redskins, and Red Dunn, present Marquette University backfield coach, who played with the Chicago Cardinals and Green Bay in the pro league, are only a few of the great passers who excelled in baseball as well."
Parker, who was drafted in the second round by the NFL Brooklyn Dodgers, signed with the Philadelphia Athletics as an infielder and played in 94 American League games over the 1937 and '38 seasons.
Baugh signed with St. Louis Cardinals executive Branch Rickey and played shortstop in 46 games for the team's affiliates in Columbus, Ohio, of the American Association, and Rochester, N.Y., of the International League, following his rookie season in the NFL.
After batting a combined .200 with Columbus and Rochester, Baugh went back to football and gave up baseball.
Parker turned down an offer to play in the College All-Star Game because of baseball and was prevented from playing football by the Athletics' Connie Mack when the baseball season ended. However, Mack finally relented and Parker joined the football Dodgers three days before their eighth game, played 57 of 60 minutes and passed for 122 yards in a 14-10 loss. Parker played baseball again in 1938 but also in all 11 of Brooklyn's games and then concentrated solely on football.
Bears finish 9-1-1, land the No. 1 pick
Just as he had done in the first draft, Halas wound up with the No. 1 overall pick again in the second draft. Philadelphia selected Francis No. 1, but traded him in mid-February to the Bears for fifth-year end and future Pro Football Hall of Famer Bill Hewitt, who had recently announced his retirement. Hewitt played three years with the Eagles.
Francis played sparingly for two years with the Bears and was traded to Pittsburgh. Over four NFL seasons, he never rushed for more than 297 yards.
Heisman Trophy winner, again, spurns NFL
For the second year in a row, the Heisman Trophy winner, this time end Larry Kelley of Yale, passed on playing pro football. After being drafted in the ninth round by Detroit, Kelley was emphatic about not playing.
Kelley (United Press, Feb. 13, 1937): "I will study at Princeton graduate school next fall. Any professional sports offers will go straight into the fireplace – the same place all the others have gone."
Lambeau finds some spare time to make his picks
Lambeau had more important things on his mind at the time of the second NFL Draft. It was held on Saturday, the day before the Packers were scheduled to play the Boston Redskins in the 1936 NFL Championship Game at New York's Polo Grounds. The Packers stayed at the Hotel Victoria, just a short walk from the 27-story Lincoln, where the draft was held, and practiced that week in Central Park.
Of the Packers' 10 picks, three made the team the next season: fullback Ed Jankowski of Wisconsin, tackle Averell Daniell and center Earl Svendsen.
Jankowski, taken with the ninth and second-to-last pick of the first round, served as a capable backup to future Pro Football Hall of Famer Clarke Hinkle for five seasons. Daniell, chosen in the second round, played five games for the Packers as a rookie, and Svendsen played in 21 regular-season games in 1937 and '39, and also in the 1938 NFL championship.
The Packers' choice that made the biggest name for himself in football was Charles "Bud" Wilkinson, their third-round pick. A blocking quarterback at the University of Minnesota, Wilkinson actually outpolled Baugh at the quarterback position in the College All-Star voting. Wilkinson finished second with more than 800,000 votes, about 4,000 more than Baugh.
But along with losing draft picks to business and baseball, NFL teams lost many of them to coaching. Wilkinson was a prime example.
Less than two months after the draft, Wilkinson took a job as backfield coach at Syracuse University. He was only 31 years old when he became head coach at the University of Oklahoma, where from 1947-63, he compiled a 145-29-4 record, including five undefeated seasons, three mythical national championships and a national record of 47 consecutive games without a defeat.
