Ohio State Football: Ranking top 5 Buckeyes in NFL
By Ben Swanger
The Ohio State football program has been a stepping stone for countless amounts of young men looking to continue their football careers in the NFL.
There are currently 62 former Ohio State football players in the NFL according to ESPN. Nearly all played under Urban Meyer or Ryan Day. Meyer reestablished the football program as an elite one and Day is building on that pedigree.
College success does not directly correlate to professional success. There are a lot of factors that play into a successful professional career. Plenty of college stars enter the league and never live up to their potential, but why is that?
Success has a lot to do with culture. If an elite prospect is inserted into a below average culture, a losing team and a cancerous locker room, it becomes magnanimously more difficult for that player to succeed.
Recent Buckeye draftees have been on both sides of the spectrum.
New Orleans Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas was drafted into an elite culture with a demanding coaching staff. As the 2019 AP Offensive Player of the Year, Thomas has now put his name among the game’s best. Of course, it’s Thomas’ relentless work ethic that fuels the fire, but the coaches do play a major role in the development process.
Washington Redskins quarterback Dwayne Haskins was drafted into a franchise undergoing a full blown rebuild. The head coach was fired early on in Haskins’ rookie season, it was unclear who the top quarterback was on a weekly basis and the team hasn’t won a playoff game since 2005.
Haskins struggled in year one, but now going into year two he’ll have to learn a whole new playbook under a new head coach. Situations are significant.
No matter how touted a player is coming out of college, the franchise that drafts the young man takes just as much, if not more, responsibility for his development as a football player.
Some Buckeyes have developed into stars, others fall by the wayside.
Ohio State has produced enough players in the league to create their own NFL team.
There will be more Bucks entering the league to play on Sundays for years to come, but which players that once sported Scarlet and Gray are among the game’s best?
With projection of performance, past performance and consistency as criteria here, let’s see if we can answer that question.