NFL Draft of Peete by Lions Comes Day Too Late--for Him

For Rodney Peete, the quick pick came a day too late.

The Heisman Trophy runner-up from USC was the second player taken today in the NFL draft--on the second day.

Peete had expected to go in the first two rounds of the draft on Sunday. Instead, he watched seven quarterbacks taken ahead of him and lamented: “A day that was supposed to be one of the most exciting days of my life turned out to be the most devastating.”

But when the draft resumed today, he was the second player taken--albeit on the sixth round--chosen by the Detroit Lions one pick after the Raiders had taken another quarterback, Jeff Francis of Tennessee, opening the round. That made Peete the ninth quarterback to go, although some scouting books had him rated second behind Troy Aikman, the first pick Sunday.

“I went from devastated to disappointed,” said Peete, who may have lost $800,000 over four years by going from the second round to the sixth, one agent estimated.

Peete’s selection came on a day when teams began their annual search for sleepers after taking most of the blue-chip players in the first few rounds.

In other words, it was a day for question marks and kickers, like Chris Jacke of Texas-El Paso, taken by Green Bay on the sixth round; Pete Stoyanovich, a one-time All-America soccer player from Indiana, taken by Miami on the seventh, and Kendall Trainor of Arkansas, on the ninth by the Cardinals, who have spent a decade looking for someone reliable to put the ball through the uprights.

Also among those chosen was Byron Sanders of Northwestern, older brother of Oklahoma State’s Heisman Trophy winner, Barry Sanders, who was the third player taken--by Detroit--in the first round. Detroit also took wide receiver Jason Phillips of Houston, the leading receiver in college football last season, on the second pick of the 10th round.

Denver, meanwhile, took Melvin Bratton, the former University of Miami fullback who sustained a severe knee injury two years ago.

Considered before the injury a possible first-round choice, Bratton was taken by the Miami Dolphins on the sixth round a year ago. But he failed to sign and went back into this year’s draft and went to the Broncos on the seventh round.

Peete, however, remained the day’s biggest name just as Don McPherson of Syracuse, last year’s Heisman runner-up, was when he was taken last year on the sixth round by Philadelphia.

Peete is black, as are McPherson and Terrence Jones of Tulane, who became the 11th quarterback taken when he went to San Diego with the final pick of the seventh round. Both were rated above many of the quarterbacks taken above them and there was some suggestion that race had played a factor.

But Peete, whose father is an assistant coach at Green Bay, didn’t bring that up, and David Cornwell, the NFL’s director of minority relations, said he didn’t think it was a factor in view of the success in the past few years of such black quarterbacks as Doug Williams, Randall Cunningham and Warren Moon.

“I talked to a lot of black personnel people, and the feeling was that he wasn’t rated as highly as a lot of people thought he was,” Cornwell said. “A decade ago, I think you could say it, but I don’t think it’s the case now.”

The main rap against Peete was his lack of arm strength and the fact that he seemed to fall off at the end of the season, notably in USC’s game against Notre Dame and in the postseason all-star games.