Defenders of the 2003 Draft

Four years after the 2011 draft we find ourselves already asking if it is the best defensive class in history. The three front runners for defensive player of the year this season are JJ Watt, Von Miller, and Justin Houston--the 11th, 2nd, and 70th picks respectively. Patrick Peterson and Richard Sherman have established themselves as two of the best cornerbacks in the league. Robert Quinn is one of the league's best edge rushers, and Marcel Dareus may be the best on the interior. The list of elite defenders from the 2011 class is almost as long as the list of elite defenders from every other season.

But still, I'm not yet ready to call it the best defensive class in history. It may get there eventually, but right now I think it is still only the second best of the past fifteen years. In 2003 the NFL received a similar infusion of defensive talent, talent that has remained a major part of the NFL up to the present day.

Pick #4: Dewayne Robertson, DT Kentucky

There is nothing remotely notable about Dewayne Robertson, but since he was the first defensive player off the board I felt the need to mention him. After a quarterback and two receivers were taken, the Jets felt the need to get a start on the defensive players. Because they’re the Jets, they ended up selecting a player that contributed next to nothing at the NFL level. Out of the league by 2009, Robertson is a reminder that even great things can get off to disappointing starts.

Pick #5: Terence Newman, CB Kansas State

The next defensive player off the board is the first to really make an impact. While he doesn’t measure up to some of the other names on the list, he has had a very strong career over the past decade with Dallas and Cincinnati. At times he was one of the top coverage guys in the league, earning a pair of trips to the Pro Bowl. He flamed out of Dallas after receiving a large contract extension, but he has hung around these past few years as a starter in Cincinnati on one of the league’s best defenses.

Pick #9 (kind of): Kevin Williams, DT Oklahoma State

Yes, this was the legendary year in which the Vikings missed their pick. A source of much humor at every draft since, the true story of what happened has become muddled in history. Essentially, the Vikings held the seventh pick and were listening to offers to trade down, as all teams do. The Baltimore Ravens wanted to move up to select Byron Leftwich, and they actually agreed to a deal with Minnesota. But at the last second they backed out, failing to communicate this to the Vikings and leaving them hung out to dry. The team picking after the Vikings, the Jaguars, leapt at the possibility to take Leftwich, and the dominoes started to fall.

This whole thing only looks stranger in retrospect. Because in the end, Jacksonville was the only team that lost out. Leftwich was a mild bust, leaving the Jaguars with almost nothing while everyone else made out like bandits. Carolina got multiple Pro Bowls from left tackle Jordan Gross. The Ravens had to settle for the player I discuss next, a tradeoff they’ve been more than happy to make. And the Vikings, the butt of every joke, ended up taking Kevin Williams, a monster of a defensive tackle that anchored their line for a decade during which he accumulated sixty sacks and led a line that nearly broke rushing defense records. A five time first team All Pro and a member of the NFL’s 2000s All Decade team, he is likely bound for the Hall of Fame.

Pick #10: Terrell Suggs, LB Arizona State

This is where we truly got rolling. After Williams went off the board, Suggs became the next defensive player selected. A freak athlete from Arizona State, he was the perfect fit as the next superstar on Baltimore’s defense. He’s been their primary pass rushing threat since he entered the league, and he recently passed 100 career sacks. His Hall of Fame candidacy is still up in the air, but there is no denying that he’s been one of the crucial pieces of the dominant Ravens defense over the past decade. Baltimore is probably glad they weren’t able to trade up for Leftwich after all.

Pick #11: Marcus Trufant, CB Washington State

It’s sad, but people seem to have already forgotten about Trufant. He burned bright and he burned quick, earning All Pro honors in 2007, a year in which he was probably the best cornerback in the league. He fell off quickly after that but remained a solid player in Seattle’s secondary up to the beginning of the Legion of Boom era. I don’t think it would be ridiculous to give him some credit for the development of these players, or for the development of his younger brother Desmond, one of the better young cornerbacks in the league. Trufant’s career didn’t last like some of these other players, but he definitely earned the superstar distinction.

Pick #16: Troy Polamalu, S USC

Well here we go, another Super Bowl champion, another Defensive Player of the Year, another Hall of Famer. Polamalu was considered a bit of a risk coming into the draft, a reckless athlete with an uncertain injury history. But he found the perfect home in Pittsburgh with defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau, who allowed him to freelance like no other defensive player in modern NFL history. Polamalu would line up across from the center and drop into a deep zone. He’d hover thirty yards downfield and still make a tackle in the backfield. He was a wrecking ball of chaos that was somehow smart enough to avoid allowing big plays over his head. There has never been anyone else like Polamalu in NFL history, and I wager there never will be anyone like him to come around in the future.

Pick #31: Nnamdi Asomugha, CB California

The steal of the first round goes to Oakland, with what happens to be their most recent quality first round pick (not counting Khalil Mack, who looks good but is still way too early in his career for me to pass judgment.) During his time in Oakland Asomugha was indisputably the best cornerback in the game. He shut down opposing receivers better than any cornerback since Deion Sanders, and teams were genuinely afraid whenever they faced him. His career won’t be remembered as fondly as it deserves in retrospect because of his low interception totals and his failure in Philadelphia, but if I had any say in the process I would see to it that he ended up in the Hall of Fame.

Pick #35: Charles Tillman, CB Louisiana-Lafayette

The superstars of this draft arrived in the first round, but it was the depth of this defensive class that truly defined it. Even after every team had received its chance to pick, there were plenty of great players available. Take Tillman, another player I discussed during my post on defensive Hall of Famers a couple weeks back. I decided that he isn’t bound for Canton, but that doesn’t diminish what he accomplished or the value the Bears received from their second round pick. Of course, as you’ll soon see, this wasn’t even the best selection of Chicago’s draft class.

Pick #39: Rashean Mathis, CB Bethune-Cookman

Another talented cornerback comes off the board between pick 30 and 40. Mathis was part of a talented defense that carried David Garrard and the Jaguars into the playoffs and even won a playoff game. He had a knack for undercutting routes and producing interceptions, and it was a common sight to see his dreadlocks streaming behind him as he took a pick back the other way. He’s had a nice little resurgence in Detroit this year after it looked like his career had run its course. While he was never one of the top cornerbacks of his generation, he has put together an impressive career for a former second round pick.

Pick #40: EJ Henderson, LB Maryland

As a Vikings fan I remember every detail of Henderson’s tumultuous career. The struggles of his youth, forced to play out of position and routinely benched for his inability to cover the field from sideline to sideline. His emergence into one of the better middle linebackers in the league and the frustration when no one acknowledged it. Recognition finally arriving as he began his decline, only for this decline to be sped up by one of the most brutal leg injuries I have ever seen. In a perfect world he hit the league immediately as a middle linebacker, began vacuuming up tackles across the field, and joined the ranks of players like James Farrior as a successful second tier veteran. These sort of stories are common in the NFL, but that doesn’t make them any less depressing.

Pick #56: Osi Umenyiora, DE Troy State

The Giants have won two Super Bowls on the strength of their pass rush, and Umenyiora has been a major part of each of those dominant units. He lined up across from Michael Strahan in 2007, and he lined up across from Justin Tuck in 2011. These pass rushes torched New England’s offensive lines, and they probably still dance through Tom Brady’s nightmares. Umenyiora never received the same recognition as some of the other players on these lines, but an argument could be made that he was their most consistent and most reliable pass rusher after Strahan’s retirement. He never accumulated the sack numbers to earn consideration for the Hall of Fame, but he was still a fantastic talent to find late in the second round.

Pick #68: Lance Briggs, LB Arizona

Not satisfied with drafting one potential Hall of Famer outside the first round, the Bears decided to spend their third round pick on an athletic linebacker out of Arizona. The middle linebacker position has an impressive legacy in Chicago, and Briggs lived up to that legacy even as he was shifted to outside linebacker to play next to Brian Urlacher. For several years he was the best player on that defense, a force against both the run and the pass.

An even more interesting piece of trivia is the player taken after Briggs. He isn’t a defensive player so he doesn’t really belong on this list, but the fact that two such high quality players went back to back in the third round is enough of a curiosity for me to mention. That player: future Hall of Famer Jason Witten.

Pick #120: Asante Samuel, CB UCF

Look at this, the rarest of creatures. A Patriots defensive back selected in the mid rounds who actually panned out. Over the past few years New England has acquired a reputation for truly miserable picks in the secondary, wasting second round picks on players like Darius Butler and Ras-I Dowling (though it’s hard to blame them for drafting a player named Ras-I). But for years before that they were known for their ability to churn out quality cornerbacks from nowhere. Of these players, Samuel was probably the best. With 51 career interceptions he has a decent shot at the Hall of Fame, and all of his best years were spent locking down the cornerback position in New England.

Pick #125: Ike Taylor, CB Louisiana-Lafayette

If you’ll allow your eyes to drift upwards, you’ll notice that Taylor was not the first defensive back taken out of Louisiana-Lafayette. His teammate Tillman went in the second round, and both players quickly established themselves as reliable and occasionally great NFL cornerbacks. Taylor likely would have made several Pro Bowls if not for his habit of dropping easy interceptions, but for several seasons he was one of the few cornerbacks who shadowed the opposing team’s top receiver wherever he went on the field. With two players like Tillman and Taylor in the secondary, it’s a wonder how any team in the Sun Belt managed to throw against the Ragin’ Cajuns.

Pick #138: Robert Mathis, DE Alabama A&M

It was about this time when we began to realize just how truly special Peyton Manning was, and just how horrendous the players on the other side of the ball were. Indianapolis went all in on defense, starting by selecting a pass rusher in the first round in 2002, finding a superstar in Dwight Freeney. They didn’t expect to find a counterpart late in the draft in 2003, but they happened to stumble upon a hidden gem in Mathis. With over 100 career sacks and still producing for the Colts, Mathis has probably produced the most value out of any player in this draft relative to his draft position.