Tennessee football had no players taken in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft. But plenty of Volunteers drafted later have had great pro careers. It was a shock to nobody that Tennessee football had nobody taken in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday. However, the result was still embarrassing considering the event was being held in Nashville. Either way, though, that’s been the nature of the Vols this decade. Their lack of college production has translated to fewer and fewer names being called out on draft day, something that was unheard of for this program in the 1990s. But it’s not all bad news. Tennessee football has a history, even up to this decade, of producing high-quality NFL talent with guys not taken in the first round. In fact, they could have a chance to do that this year, especially with defensive linemen like Kyle Phillips, Alexis Johnson and Shy Tuttle. In the past, UT has had second and third rounders, late rounders, undrafted free agents and supplemental draft picks all make a name for themselves in the NFL. So it’s far from over for this draft class. Let’s look back at some examples. In this post, we’re going to rank the Vols who had the greatest NFL careers despite not being taken in the first round. To be clear, this does not take their college careers into account. In fact, lack of enough college production could be a reason some of these guys weren’t taken higher in the pros. We’ll analyze the number of years these guys played and the overall success they had at their position. To nobody’s surprise, there will be plenty of players who were very successful and made a huge impact representing Rocky Top. So let’s go ahead and break down all the guys we’re talking about. These are the top 10 former Tennessee football players who had great pro careers despite not being selected in the first round of the NFL Draft.<doc-sep>4 Jan 1999: Al Wilson #27 of the Tennessee Volunteers sitting on the bench resting during the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl Game against the Florida State Seminoles at the Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. The Volunteers defeated the Seminoles 23-16. Mandatory Credit: Tom Hauck /Allsport Tennessee football legend Al Wilson announced the two second round picks for the Denver Broncos at the NFL Draft in Nashville Friday. Although they might be light on the NFL Draft this year, Tennessee football had a player from its glory days trotted out for the event on Friday in light of it being in Nashville. That player was Al Wilson, the key member of the 1998 national championship team who became a star in the pros. A five-time Pro Bowler and top 5 legend in UT history, Wilson played for the Denver Broncos from 1999 to 2006 coming off the Vols’ national championship. He announced both Denver Broncos’ picks in the second round. The first pick was tackle Dalton Risner of the Kansas State Wildcats, and the second was quarterback Drew Lock of the Missouri Tigers. They were back to back after they traded for the 42nd pick from the Cincinnati Bengals. You can see his selections here. It was great to see Wilson, a Tennessee football legends, to be able to be in Nashville for the draft and represent the franchise he was most known for representing. And in typical fashion, he couldn’t hide his energy, shouting out “How about them Vols!” and “How about them Broncos!” While Peyton Manning and Leonard Little were the stars of the 1997 SEC Championship team, Wilson surprised the world by reaching an elite level in his own right in 1998. He may have potentially surpassed both of them in UT lore with his play. It was clear with the way Wilson made his announcement that he is proud to still represent Tennessee football. When Vols fans talk about their dominance in the 90s with players who became stars in the NFL, he’s a great example. What’s even crazier is how the Vols could ride Wilson to a national title after losing both Manning and Little. That shows how deep the program was back then under Phillip Fulmer. And for just a little bit of time, fans in Nashville got to reminisce on that success with these two.<doc-sep>Former Tennessee football player and current broadcaster Charles Davis Any time there are few — or zero — University of Tennessee football players selected in an NFL Draft, the safest best in the world is that Charles Davis’ NFL Network coworkers will give him stick for it. You can set your watch by it. But Davis, the former Vols star turned NFL and college football broadcaster, took the fight to his coworkers during the 2019 draft in Nashville. Davis wore a Tennessee Orange tie during his broadcast from the state capital, which immediately drew a comment from Rich Eisen. “Look at you Charles up there in … is that a Tennessee Volunteer-colored tie that you’ve got on tonight here in Tennessee?” Eisen asked. “You’re very astute, Rich. Yes, it is,” Davis said. “We are in the Volunteer State, and as a proud graduate of the University of Tennessee, I wanted to give a nod to my state, pay homage here to the city of Nashville. I want you to remember this: Not only is this the Volunteer State, but no matter what our record, we run this state. “That’s just how it is.” Davis wasn’t done. The East Tennessee native then made sure Eisen and everyone else knew he also was wearing Tennessee Power T cufflinks. “And, oh, by the way, check this out,” Davis said while showing off his cufflinks. It was at that point, though, that Daniel Jeremiah stepped in and made a joke about 2019 not being a banner year for the Vols in the NFL Draft. “Hey, Charles, real quick question,” said Jeremiah, who played quarterback at Appalachian State from 1998-2000. “We gonna have more Tennessee cufflinks or Tennessee players drafted this year?” “I knew that one was coming,” replied Davis, who knows as well as anyone that Tennessee might be shut out of this year’s draft, with only a couple of players (perhaps defensive lineman Kyle Phillips) listed as potential late-round picks. Tennessee’s NFL Draft history is one of the strongest in college football history, but the past decade has been erratic for the Vols in every area, including that one. There have been plenty of picks, and even some first-rounders, but Tennessee also went consecutive years (2015 and 2016) without having a single player selected. At least one Vol had been selected in 51 consecutive drafts before the 2015 shutout, and that combined with the 2016 shutout was an embarrassing trend for one of the winningest programs in the sport’s history. Tennessee got back on the board in a big way in 2017, when six Vols were selected in the first four rounds of the draft, but only one Tennessee player (Rashaan Gaulden) was selected in 2018, and that combined with another potential shutout this year is perhaps one of the biggest reasons Tennessee parted ways with Butch Jones late in the 2017 season. NFL Network showed some of Davis’ Tennessee highlights during his comments about the Vols, showing his interception of Mike Shula during the Vols’ 16-14 win over Alabama on the Third Saturday in October in 1985. “You see, this is back when we used to beat Alabama,” Davis said. “Yeah, that was when we used to beat Alabama.” Davis ended the Vols’ chatter in the segment by telling a story about how much Shula still hates watching the clip of that interception. “You guys are gonna have to apologize to Mike Shula about that,” Davis said. “He told me if he saw that film one more time, he was gonna kill me. So I need bodyguards, and I want you guys to tell Mike it wasn’t my idea, OK?”<doc-sep>We’ll see if Tennessee has a player picked this weekend but signee Elijah Simmons (#72 to the left of Goodell) got on the stage during the first round, that counts just the same yes? pic.twitter.com/z88zukTJ5I — Patrick Brown (@pbrown247) April 26, 2019 The 2019 NFL Draft happening in Nashville this weekend, and the host Tennessee Titans decided to pay homage to high school football in the area by having the team captains from its metro area's 13 high schools on stage behind commissioner Roger Goodell as he announced the franchise's first-round pick on Thursday. One of those players was Tennessee Vols signee Elijah Simmons. The big defensive lineman, representing Pearl-Cohn High School, was just behind Goodell as he announced the Titans' selection of Mississippi State star Jeffery Simmons with the 19th overall pick. And the Tennessee signee caught the attention of one of the best players in the NFL. Houston Texans star defensive end JJ Watt saw enough from Simmons on stage to want to have him on his team. Watt tweeted: "Can we draft #72 from the Tennessee metro high school team? Kid looks like a beast." Can we draft #72 from the Tennessee metro high school team? Kid looks like a beast. — JJ Watt (@JJWatt) April 26, 2019 Simmons was rated a three-star prospect and the No. 562 overall player and No. 42 defensive tackle in the 2019 class by 247Sports. He signed with the Vols in December and is set to join them in the coming weeks. Listed at 6-foot and 350 pounds, Simmons is expecting to bolster Tennessee's defensive line at the nose tackle position. He earned his scholarship offer from the Vols with his showing in front of Tennessee's coaching staff during a camp in Knoxville last summer. "Elijah's a very unique young man," Vols coach Jeremy Pruitt said in December. "He comes to camp, he weighs 340 pounds, and you’re sitting there watching him out there and just his athleticism, his change of direction, his motor. He never quit out there at camp and done a fantastic job, had a good senior year. "I told him the other day, I asked him, I said ‘How much do you weigh?’. He said 352. I told him, I said, ‘When we offered you a scholarship, our agreement was that you had to be 325,’ and he said, ‘Well Coach, I can dunk a basketball right now.' I said, ‘Well, I want you to video and send it to me’. Well, he did dunk it, but it was an alley-oop, so I told him he had to get to 325 until he could get off the ground with a ball in his hand to do it, so that tells you a little bit about how he can move."<doc-sep>
Tennessee football has had five players taken in the first round of the NFL Draft in the 2010s. Here is a ranking of those five former Volunteers. In the past, Tennessee football made a name for itself in the NFL Draft, and they would stock up the first round with talent. After all, they had 10 first round picks in the 2000s, 12 in the 1990s and nine in the 1980s. Simply put, they loaded up the first round, and multiple times, they would have three first-rounders in one year. That was a testament to the success they had and the talent they produced during that time period. But as the final NFL Draft of this decade got underway, the Vols were almost certainly not going to have any first round picks this year. That leaves the total number of former Tennessee football players taken in the first round this decade at five. The Vols haven’t been this light on first round draft picks since the 1970s, showing how far they fell this decade from the program that Johnny Majors built and Phillip Fulmer maintained. In fact, two of their five first rounders selected this decade actually only played in the 2000s, and when you take that into account, their numbers parallel the 1970s. However, this decade has still produced some talent, as we showed with those draft picks. So it’s worth noting that they deserve to be touted for still representing Rocky Top well in the pros, and we’re going to do that in this post. Yes, knowing that no more first-rounders will go, it’s time to rank the five former Vols taken in the first round this decade by their NFL careers. We may be cheating with two of the players ending their college careers in 2009, but they were still taken this decade. Our criteria takes into account their pro careers, but we also throw in a bit of potential in there the rest of the way, as most of these guys are still playing. So let’s break them down. Here are the five Tennessee football players taken in the first round of the NFL Draft this decade.