Fans who tune in to ABC, ESPN, or the NFL Network at some point in the next three days will do so to watch their favorite teams select players for the upcoming season. But fans may not recognize how events held 40 years ago this week helped to shape the NFL draft, and pro sports in general.
Over the course of April 26 and April 27, 1983, that year’s draft transformed football into the all-consuming spectacle it is today. Events in the ballroom of the New York Sheraton would also presage a coming era of not just enriched but emboldened professional athletes.
Empowered Players
The 1983 NFL draft featured seven quarterbacks selected in the first round — a record. Four of them (John Elway, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, and Tony Eason) would go on to start in the Super Bowl over 11 of the following 16 years, practically defining an era of football.
The way in which fully one-quarter of the league (i.e., seven of the 28 teams then in existence) selected a new starting quarterback illustrated how the position had morphed into arguably the most important in all professional team sports. The hope that can accompany a new quarterback provided curiosity and intrigue for numerous teams and their followers heading into the 1983 draft. It also provided high drama over the first quarterback selected, and the first player drafted overall.
An acclaimed prodigy from Stanford University, John Elway had little interest in playing for the Baltimore Colts, who held
