What Teams Have Drafted The Most Buckeyes
What NFL Team Drafts the Most Buckeyes?
I recently saw that there are 63 former Ohio State football players on NFL rosters at the beginning of training camp. The New Orleans Saints currently have the most Buckeyes on one team with six. Which, really did not come as a surprise to me because the Saints have gone on a recent run, where they seemingly draft a OSU player each year. This got me thinking about what team drafts the most OSU players. I decided to take a look at the last 10 years of draft history to try to determine what team/teams really love our Buckeyes. So, without any further ado, here is what I found.
Arizona Cardinals: 0
Atlanta Falcons: 1
Baltimore Ravens: 1
Buffalo Bills: 2
Carolina Panthers: 1
Chicago Bears: 0
Cincinnati Bengals: 5
Cleveland Browns: 1
Dallas Cowboys: 3
Denver Broncos: 3
Detroit Lions: 1
Green Bay Packers: 1
Houston Texans: 2
Indianapolis Colts: 4
Jacksonville Jaguars: 1
Kansas City Chiefs: 0
Los Angeles Chargers: 2
Los Angeles Rams: 2
Miami Dolphins: 4
Minnesota Vikings: 3
New England Patriots: 1
New Orleans Saints: 3
New York Giants: 2
New York Jets: 2
Oakland Raiders: 2
Philadelphia Eagles: 2
Pittsburgh Steelers: 6
San Francisco 49ers: 2
Seattle Seahawks: 2
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 0
Tennessee Titans: 0
Washington Redskins: 3
Total: 62
First off, I thought that the total would be close to the number I cited earlier (63), but I didn’t think it would only be one away (I am assuming that the number of guys not in the league anymore is balanced by the UDFA's that are on training camp rosters right now).
Another thing that caught me off guard was that the Steelers drafted the most players. As a Steeler fan, I obviously knew they liked guys from Ohio State because of Ryan Shazier and Cameron Heyward both being studs, but they haven't drafted any since 2015 so to still be a clear-cut number one surprised me.
I also thought it was very interesting that three of the top four teams (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Miami) are all within three hours of Columbus, with the Browns being the only team in that radius to not pick at least four Buckeyes (The Browns only one is recently drafted Denzel Ward).
The Saints, despite having six Buckeyes currently on their roster, have only drafted three in the last 10 years (with none of them happening until 2016 where they took Michael Thomas and Vonn Bell).
There are five teams (Titans, Buccaneers, Chiefs, Bears, and Cardinals) who have drafted zero players (However, I think at least one of these might change soon, considering who the new coach in Tennessee is) with one of them, the Bears, being one of only three teams to not have any Buckeyes currently along with the Ravens and Jets. However, based on how much talent Ohio State has been producing recently, I wouldn’t be surprised if in five or ten years every team had called the name of at least one Buckeye in the draft.
JK Dobbins could certainly add to that number! A flashback to his HS tape above.
