{"id":186483,"date":"2025-07-06T18:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T18:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/186483\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T18:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T18:36:08","slug":"former-michigan-state-football-stars-featured-as-top-draft-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/186483\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Michigan State football stars featured as top draft picks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We went through every NFL draft since 1967 and named the best selection at every slot, from Peyton Manning at No. 1 to Brock Purdy at No. 262. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/X1XMr14O9z\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/X1XMr14O9z<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNNFL\/status\/1940946225840189639?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 4, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pro development is of the upmost importance for Michigan State and all of the college football world. Until the 2021 NFL Draft, the Spartans ere in elite company, having at least one player drafted in every draft during the modern era.<\/p>\n<p>While the unfortunate nature of the streak coming to an end was a reality, it is worth appreciating the fact that the Spartans have put so many different players into the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Getting drafted is a feat, and while some will laugh at whether or not Day 3 selections in the NFL Draft matter, there is a successful draft pick at all 262 selections that the modern NFL Draft has seen.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN&#8217;s Benjamin Solak compiled a ranking of these draft picks, and naming who he believed the best selection was at every pick in the modern draft history. Two Spartans made the cut.<\/p>\n<p>Kirk Cousins checked in at the No. 102, where he was selected in the 2012 draft by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/washington-commanders\/363\" data-autotag=\"a4fb178e-5fd0-440a-8a7b-b87aea742850\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Washington Commanders<\/a> organization. The second Spartan came in at No. 123, with Domata Peko&#8217;s 2006 selection by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/cincinnati-bengals\/327\" data-autotag=\"6d3e484d-5133-4c06-a871-967f8646390b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Also of note, while it does not really count, former Spartan (one season before transferring) Nick Foles was featured on the list from his selection at No. 88 in the 2012 draft by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/philadelphia-eagles\/354\" data-autotag=\"c1b3a094-e294-4a77-b1b2-dbdbd5bfa2c5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Philadelphia Eagles<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Contact\/Follow us\u00a0@<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thespartanswire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The SpartansWire<\/a>\u00a0on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SpartansWire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook\u00a0<\/a>to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Cory Linsner on X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Cory_Linsner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@Cory_Linsner<\/a><\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We went through every NFL draft since 1967 and named the best selection at every slot, from Peyton&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[247,265,228,227,256,318,339,1554,1556,427,7858,25,12,388,7,379,3604,294,957,4598,248,267,88,6,245,537,242,109,530,2540,9,266,376,776,1555,855,111],"class_list":{"0":"post-186483","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-bengals","11":"tag-cincinnati","12":"tag-cincinnati-bengals","13":"tag-college","14":"tag-college-sports","15":"tag-colleges","16":"tag-colleges-u0026-universities","17":"tag-commanders","18":"tag-cousins","19":"tag-eagles","20":"tag-espn","21":"tag-espn-inc","22":"tag-football","23":"tag-inc","24":"tag-kirk","25":"tag-kirk-cousins","26":"tag-michigan","27":"tag-michigan-state-spartans-football","28":"tag-national","29":"tag-national-sports","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-nfl","32":"tag-overall","33":"tag-overall-positive","34":"tag-philadelphia","35":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","36":"tag-positive","37":"tag-spartans","38":"tag-sports","39":"tag-sports-news","40":"tag-state","41":"tag-u0026","42":"tag-universities","43":"tag-washington","44":"tag-washington-commanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}