In the first three rounds of the 1999 NFL draft, Green Bay took defensive backs Antuan Edwards, Fred Vinson and Mike McKenzie because general manager Ron Wolf wanted to stop receiver Randy Moss in Minnesota. The entire league was smitten with the big, fast, tall Moss and many teams also wanted to find his clone in the draft.
The skinny, speedy Donald Driver was not that guy.
Perhaps Driver sensed great skepticism on a conference call with reporters immediately after the Packers took him late in the seventh round that year.
So Driver promised he would bring his highlight film for everyone in Green Bay because it would show him "jumping over the heads" of defensive backs.
Everyone laughed.
Players make all kinds of pledges and promises on draft day. But it's one of the most memorable moments of their lives. It's where first impressions are made. It's where it all began for the members of the Super Bowl XLV champions.
Like Clay Matthews III.
Born into NFL legacy with his father, uncle and grandfather all NFL alumni, he came out of high school without a single Division I scholarship offer. So he picked the University of Southern Cal, possibly the toughest place of all, and walked on.
By the time the Packers drafted him late in the first round in 2009 - moving up in a trade to get him - Matthews was a very confident person.
"It truly is a remarkable story in the fact that most walk-ons just don't have enough determination and grit and hard work within them to be in the position I am today," he said shortly after he was drafted. "It would have been easy for me to quit and walk away from it or just succumb to it, but I wanted it so much more.
"I'm a terrific athlete. I definitely have confidence in my abilities. (Football) is something I'm destined to do. I'm looking to start making a name for myself as Clay Matthews III and not Junior."
That's a common theme from players on draft day, from the first round to the last: Everyone believes he has something to prove.
. . . Or that a high-round pick was justified.
"I'm actually at a restaurant that my family just opened," said Jordy Nelson, a relatively unknown receiver at the time, after being selected in the second round in 2008. "I answered the phone and it was Green Bay. They said they were going to take me. I got awfully excited. I'd like to thank president Mark Murphy, coach Mike McCarthy and all those guys up there in the organization for taking me . . ."
. . . Or that the late-round pick was a missed opportunity for other teams.
"In college I had a pretty good term there, and I felt I definitely should have went higher," said Desmond Bishop in 2007 after being drafted in the sixth round. "I'm just happy to be granted this opportunity and I'm going to make the best of it."
On his draft day in 2007, Brandon Jackson said he felt he was ready for the NFL, but that he also left college early to help his mom.
"It had a little to do with a little financial support with my mom," said Jackson. "She's a diabetic, she works double overtime on her job. She's a registered nurse at a nursing home, and she lifts people up every day and she has a lot of fluid on her ankles. She has high blood pressure and it gets to her a lot, because she works double overtime. I just want to be there for her, because she was there for me throughout everything that I've done."
Just before Josh Sitton was drafted in the fourth round in 2008, he was in a mullet-tossing contest, in which people hurl the fish across the beach all as an excuse to throw a huge party.
"Actually I just went and watched. I didn't have the 20 bucks to enter it," said Sitton.
Texas tight end Jermichael Finley was a steal for the Packers in the third round in 2008, but on the actual day he was also still a student who had to study for a final exam later that night.
"It's going to be really hard to study tonight," he said. "I'm getting bombarded by phone calls, family and friends telling me congratulations. I'll call my brother and tell him the news. I'm kind of spending time with my family right now, but I do have to study for this exam tomorrow.
"The class is 'Fathers and Daughters.' It kind of examines the father-daughter relationship in America. It kind of examines that relationship. I'm taking it just to fill my hours so I can graduate."
In 2005, Packers general manager Ted Thompson made Aaron Rodgers his first Green Bay pick, taken at No. 24 overall, but the story at the time was all about Rodgers' free fall.
Some had predicted the Californian and lifelong San Francisco fan would go No. 1 to San Francisco that year. The 49ers, with Mike McCarthy on staff, took Alex Smith instead. Rodgers waited forever with a camera in his face in New York.
Thompson wouldn't let Rodgers slip away.
"We had Aaron Rodgers rated as one of the top players in the draft. We felt very fortunate to be able to get him with pick No. 24," Thompson said that day.
Thompson was asked how Rodgers will handle being called the heir apparent to then 35-year-old Brett Favre.
"We shouldn't call him that," said Thompson. "He'll have the chance to be the quarterback that plays after Brett Favre, but there is no Brett Favre heir apparent. There was no Bart Starr heir apparent."
Rodgers, just 21 years old at the time, had never been to Wisconsin before, saying the coldest-weather games on his rsum to that point were in "some near-freezing hail before. It's gotten down probably to the mid-40s in some Friday night games in October, I guess."
Rodgers declared he "was over it after they called Alex's name," but admitted the snub by San Francisco would fuel his motivation.
"Yeah, I will. But Merton Hanks told me, 'You should play your career with a chip on your shoulder regardless and always feel like you've got something to prove.' And I've got a lot to prove. I'm going to tap into Brett's resources and his knowledge and try and become the best player I can be. And when my time comes to be successful and seize the opportunity, I'll do it."
The day after he was drafted, Rodgers was brought in to Green Bay - after he saw snow in Detroit on his connecting flight. Asked if he had talked to Favre yet, Rodgers hadn't.
"No, actually I got a call from a Mississippi number last night and I was kind of hoping it might be Brett," said Rodgers. "But it was Rich Campbell, who I've met before and he just wished me good luck."
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