Editor’s note: This is the 18th installment of The McGinn Files, a series looking back at NFL drafts of the past 36 years. The foundation of the series is Bob McGinn’s transcripts of his annual interviews with general managers, personnel directors and scouts since 1985.

When Peyton Manning stepped to a podium in early March 1997 and announced he would return for his senior season at the University of Tennessee, personnel men for every NFL team in need of a quarterback went back to their film projectors to reexamine what else was there at the quarterback position.

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In New Orleans, general manager Bill Kuharich said Jim Druckenmiller of Virginia Tech was his top-rated passer.

“He reminds me of Kerry Collins,” Kuharich said a few weeks before the draft. “I don’t see a big concern with him. Peyton was so talked about that anybody else after Peyton, people pushed down. Now that Druckenmiller’s in there, they’re not going to pull him back up. To me, he’s the clear-cut choice of all the quarterbacks.”

At 6-foot-5 and 240 pounds, Collins was the classic pocket passer that teams were starting to see in Druckenmiller, who measured 6-foot-4 1/2 and 234 pounds. Collins was drafted No. 5 by Carolina in 1995, and in his second season, he led the Panthers to a 12-4 record and a berth in the NFC Championship Game.

Bobby Riggle, one of the Chicago Bears’ three regional scouts, graded Druckenmiller as a better player than Collins. “More innovative than Collins,” Riggle said. “Extremely strong arm. Great feel for the deep ball.”

In Manning’s stead, many teams did end up with Druckenmiller as the No. 1-ranked quarterback, although some did so almost by default. Unfortunately for the San Francisco 49ers, they acted on what turned out to be a horrendous misevaluation. It was the selection of Druckenmiller, perhaps more than any other personnel move, that halted one of the league’s greatest dynasties at just short of 20 years.

Was Druckenmiller the biggest bust in 49ers draft history? Probably. Other than a brief time during his rookie season when injuries sidelined Steve Young and Jeff Brohm, Druckenmiller never even advanced beyond No. 3 in his two seasons for San Francisco.

In the six games, including one start, of his NFL career, Druckenmiller completed 21 of 52 passes for one touchdown, four interceptions and a passer rating of 29.2. After being traded to the Miami Dolphins one week before the opener in 1999 for a pair of seventh-round draft choices, Druckenmiller was inactive almost all season as No. 3 behind Dan Marino and Damon Huard. When the Dolphins needed someone to play, they signed retread Scott Zolak. Released by Miami on Aug. 16, 2000, Druckenmiller backed up for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League in 2001 before starting for the Memphis Maniax of the ill-fated XFL that year.

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In 2003, Colts team president Bill Polian and coach Tony Dungy were hunting for Manning’s backup in Indianapolis when they decided to take a flier on Druckenmiller. He was so unimpressive during his six-month offseason stay that the Colts let him go in mid-June, long before the pads even went on. That ended his career in football; he has lived in Memphis, Tenn., for years, working in sales and business.

“He’s one of those guys I think everybody wants to forget about,” said a member of the 49ers’ coaching-scouting staff during the team’s dalliance with Druckenmiller. “I never heard of Druckenmiller ever again.”

One might even call Druckenmiller the worst 49ers player ever. By the same token, the 49ers’ front office and personnel department were equally to blame for adding a player who almost everyone in the league could tell didn’t fit the revolutionary West Coast offensive system first installed in San Francisco by Bill Walsh.

“I think if he got drafted by somebody who just played the game from the pocket, he would have stayed in the league for a while,” Steve Mariucci, the 49ers’ coach from 1997-02, said this month. “He had a big enough arm. Good leader. He was just in the wrong system.”

At the time, the 30-team NFL had a shortage of capable quarterbacks. No quarterbacks were taken in the first round the previous year, and in the four-year stretch from 1991-95, six of the eight first-round passers were busts: Dan McGwire and Todd Marinovich in 1991, David Klingler and Tommy Maddox in ’92, Rick Mirer in ’93 and Heath Shuler in ’94.

The New York Giants, with Dave Brown and Danny Kanell atop their depth chart, waited until the sixth round in 1997 before plucking Mike Cherry of Murray State.

“It’s getting to be pretty damn grim,” said Tom Boisture, the Giants’ director of player personnel. “One of our quarterbacks better come through because there ain’t none out there. I take that back. If you get Mike Cherry or some of these guys in the right spot, they might develop into something. (Druckenmiller) has a chance, but I’m really not high on any of them.”

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Terry Bradway, the director of player personnel for the Kansas City Chiefs, engineered the signing of unrestricted free agent Elvis Grbac on March 5. Grbac, who received $20.4 million over five years, had been Young’s top backup in San Francisco for three seasons.

“There really isn’t anybody that I would feel comfortable taking in the first round,” Bradway said. “That includes (Jake) Plummer, (Pat) Barnes and Druckenmiller. I like all three of those guys. I think they’ve all got potential down the road. I think they’re all deserving of a second-round grade. … I don’t know where we’re going to get these quarterbacks from. That’s why the move we made was a good one.”

In Detroit, Ron Hughes, the Lions’ vice president of player personnel, said Druckenmiller “would be the only guy, and he needs a ton of work. He’s raw. He’s a little bit like Brett Favre coming out, with his temperament and everything. He can throw it. He escapes enough. But he’s not Brett Favre.”

Tom Donahoe, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ director of football operations, gave Druckenmiller a lukewarm endorsement as the top quarterback.

“He’s probably No. 1,” Donahoe said. “I think he’s hot and cold. He’s a big, strong guy. A tough guy. Has a pretty good arm. I think he’s inconsistent with his accuracy. He’s not a great scrambler, although he can move around probably enough where he won’t get killed. He’s come on these last two years and had pretty good production. I still think he’s inconsistent. I don’t see him as having a real quick release. He’s a different kind of quarterback. He’s not a nimble, athletic guy. If you’re looking for somebody to stand back there in the pocket and throw the football, he can do that.”

Although Druckenmiller was No. 1 on the Raiders’ draft board, national scout Frank Smouse of the Cincinnati Bengals ranked him No. 4. Dick Corrick, an area scout for the Atlanta Falcons, viewed him as a third-round pick.

“If you’ve got to have one, he’s the guy,” Corrick said. “He’s got a hell of an arm. I think he’s a more natural thrower than Kerry Collins. But he’s one of those statue kind of guys.”

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John Dorsey, the Green Bay Packers’ director of college scouting, mentioned that some other scouts were comparing Druckenmiller to Jim Kelly, who had just retired after a Hall of Fame career with the Buffalo Bills. “Facially, he’s Kelly,” Dorsey said. “I see that big, strong, physical guy. Will need some work on his throws.”

Bills GM John Butler, who was with Kelly all those years, pointed out that Druckenmiller regarded Kelly as his hero.

“I don’t know if anybody will be like Jim,” Butler said. “Jim could do special things that nobody could do. But, when you get down to it, you’d have to say (Druckenmiller) is the best quarterback right now. He’s strong. He’s big. He approaches the game the right way. He’s one of the strongest kids on the team. He works out hard. He’s just tough. He does have arm strength. He’s got the things you want to see. He is (a) hard-nosed, tough guy.”

The Packers had Druckenmiller No. 1 among quarterbacks but saw him as an improper fit for their version of the West Coast offense as designed and called by coach Mike Holmgren, a Walsh disciple. GM Ron Wolf viewed him as a fit for a dropback scheme as coached by Joe Gibbs in Washington and historically by the Raiders.

“I don’t think he could ever play in our style of offense,” Wolf said. “But he’s the best quarterback. He’s a dropback passer is what he is. He’s got all those things (toughness) but I don’t see any (Favre) in him.”

Mike Holovak, the Houston Oilers’ vice president of player personnel, expressed confidence that at some point in his career, Druckenmiller would be a starter.

At the combine, Druckenmiller didn’t run the 40-yard dash because of a groin pull. He managed a vertical jump of 29 inches and a broad jump of 9 feet. His time in the 20-yard shuttle was 4.28 seconds, and his three-cone drill time was 7.92 seconds.

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Druckenmiller also scored 20 on the 12-minute, 50-question Wonderlic test. The NFL average at the time was 19. Of the 16 quarterbacks at the combine, Druckenmiller’s 20 tied for the lowest score.

“It’s Dumbenmiller, not Druckenmiller,” a scouting director for an AFC team said. “He cannot adjust to anything he sees on the field. … He’s missing something in field leadership and I don’t know what it is. I like him, but there’s something missing. He’s very popular, but weightlifting won’t make a difference in a quarterback. I’d just as soon he didn’t lift weights.”

In the Dolphins’ media guide for 2000, it was noted that Druckenmiller won Virginia Tech’s Iron Man competition in 1995. His weight-room feats included a bench press of 350 pounds and a 500-pound squat.

Druckenmiller, with just one big-school scholarship offer out of Northampton, Pa., attended Fork Union Military Academy in 1991 before enrolling at Virginia Tech in January 1992. He redshirted during a 2-8-1 season, coach Frank Beamer’s worst of his 29-year tenure in Blacksburg. Druckenmiller backed up Maurice DeShazo during winning seasons in 1993 and ’94 before going a combined 20-4 as a starter in 1995 and ’96. His NFL passer rating as a first-time starter was 75.0; he improved to 98.3 as a senior. He then had a solid week at the Senior Bowl.

“I did him at Virginia Tech,” Jim Gruden, who along with Oscar Lofton scouted the Southeast for the 49ers, said this month. “He was a weight-room fanatic. In the weight room, he was strong as anybody on their team, basically. He was built like a big-time guy … built to take a hit. He was a tough guy, he sure was, and they had good teams.

“I saw him as a solid player. I would guess I had a second- or third-round grade on him. Backup. Most of the (49ers’ scouts) thought he was going to be a solid backup. If he had to play, he could perform. He wouldn’t be the franchise.”

Young claimed his fifth passing title in 1996 but a groin injury hampered his ability to run for much of the season. He also had a pair of concussions. In the playoffs, he cracked two ribs in an NFC wild-card victory over the Philadelphia Eagles before having to depart a divisional loss in Green Bay after two series. His backup, Grbac, was gone to Kansas City, leaving Brohm, a third-year free agent, as the lone backup to Young, then 35.

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John Brunner, the 49ers’ Midwest scout, at the time said there were three quarterbacks worthy of discussion: Arizona State’s Plummer, Cal’s Barnes and Druckenmiller. Boisture and Corrick said Mariucci had done great work developing Barnes in 1996, his only season as coach of the Golden Bears. When 49ers coach George Seifert stepped down after what he considered unacceptable demands from team hierarchy, Mariucci left Cal on Jan. 16, 1997, to coach one of the NFL’s leading franchises.

“I tried to keep Grbac there but he went to Kansas City,” Mariucci said. “He had a chance to start. (Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach) Marty Mornhinweg and I worked out Jake Plummer in Phoenix. We liked Jake. I liked Pat Barnes. We probably would have considered (Barnes) in the second round or so but he broke his throwing wrist in the Senior Bowl. It was so awful. It ruined his career.”

What Mariucci and Mornhinweg didn’t do was work out Druckenmiller. The 49ers invited him to Santa Clara for one of their pre-draft visits. The 49ers owned the 26th pick in the first round after finishing 12-4 in 1996.

“According to our draft people, they felt Druckenmiller was going to be gone by the time we picked,” Mariucci said. “That was the thinking: He’s gonna be gone.” In my day-of mock draft for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Druckenmiller didn’t make my first round.

Walsh, the 49ers’ Hall of Fame coach from 1979-88, returned to Stanford as its coach from 1992-94 and then to the 49ers as administrative assistant to the coaching staff in 1996.

“Bill Walsh really wasn’t working for the Niners but he was asked to evaluate the quarterbacks that were in the draft that year,” Gruden said. “He was there in meetings when we talked about quarterbacks. He had a feeling about quarterbacks. Obviously, too, he was a pretty damn good coach and a pretty good quarterbacks coach. He did know what he was looking at. I know that he pushed real hard for Jake Plummer. He felt he was more of a 49ers-style (quarterback). He just didn’t feel that (Druckenmiller) was the mobile quarterback we were looking for. I know Bill Walsh was really higher on Jake Plummer (than Druckenmiller).”

Walsh compared Plummer, who stood 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds, to Joe Montana, telling Sports Illustrated, “I see Jake having a Montana-like career, including the Super Bowls.”

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Dwight Clark, in his eighth season working in the 49ers’ front office after a nine-year career as a wide receiver, had been vice president and director of football operations since 1995. The director of player personnel was Vinny Cerrato, who earned his chops as Lou Holtz’s recruiting coordinator at Notre Dame from 1986-90 before joining the 49ers. In his seventh season with the 49ers, Cerrato was tight with Carmen Policy, the team president under owner Eddie DeBartolo. Although Policy managed the salary cap and the business end of the operation, he was in the draft room and intimately involved in football decision-making.

“(Clark) was kind of the GM in training,” a member of the 49ers’ scouting-coaching staff said. “When Walsh and Seifert were there, they made the call. Vinny and Carmen kind of took over that once Seifert left. Guess who made the calls? Carmen and Vinny.”

The San Francisco Examiner reported that the 49ers attempted to trade from No. 26 to No. 15 with the Dolphins in order to select Cal tight end Tony Gonzalez. The Chiefs beat them to it, consummating a deal with the Oilers to move from No. 18 to No. 13 and then drafting Gonzalez.

With the Dolphins on the clock, coach Jimmy Johnson phoned Druckenmiller. “You want to be a Dolphin?” Druckenmiller said Johnson asked him in a 2017 interview with the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call.

Not long after Druckenmiller replied in the affirmative, Johnson turned around and instead selected wide receiver Yatil Green of Miami.

“Come draft day, surprisingly I guess, to our people that had been working on the draft for a year, lo and behold (Druckenmiller) was available,” Mariucci said. “He fell. Vinny Cerrato was running our draft. He said, ‘Mooch, what do you think?’ I said, ‘You know what? We didn’t work him out.’ We had worked out the other guys. The others certainly could fit our system because they were athletic. They were throw-on-the-run guys. Pat Barnes dropped out because of the Senior Bowl wrist. You don’t take a guy with a broken right wrist in the first round.

“We were talking more about Jake Plummer and then all of a sudden he (Druckenmiller) was there. It really came down to Jake Plummer. Vinny kind of just made the call. ‘He is our highest-rated quarterback. Let’s take this guy.’ The guys in the draft room had more knowledge of him and had watched him play many times.

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“The head coach and the staff had a say, a voice, an evaluation. But especially coming in so new, we were behind in our evaluation process. I was coming out of college. I didn’t evaluate any pro guys until I got there. There was no way I was going to have evaluation for the draft. There was no way.”

Ira Miller, the longtime 49ers beat writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote in April 1999: “Walsh raved about Jake Plummer, comparing him to Joe Montana. Scouting chief Vinny Cerrato didn’t want Walsh dictating a draft pick from the outside. So Cerrato steered the 49ers toward Druckenmiller. Mariucci, feeling his way, didn’t feel secure enough to argue against it.” The last quarterback drafted in the first round by San Francisco was Steve Spurrier in 1967. Gary Wichard, who was Druckenmiller’s agent, and Cerrato were close friends.

The Arizona Cardinals selected Plummer in the middle of the second round (No. 42), and by the eighth game of his rookie season, he was starting for what had been a futile franchise. In his second year, he led the Cardinals to the playoffs for the first time since 1947. Plummer abruptly walked away from football in 2007 after six seasons with the Cardinals and four with the Denver Broncos. He finished with a regular-season record of 69-67 and a postseason record of 2-4. In 2005, he started for Denver in the AFC Championship Game.

Druckenmiller’s awful first season was due in part to malfeasance on the part of Policy and the front office. He missed the first two weeks of training camp in Rocklin, Calif., because the organization didn’t have room under the salary cap to sign him. “We were salary cap-strapped so we couldn’t even bring him in right away,” Mariucci said. “We couldn’t get enough room to sign our first-round draft choice. So he came to training camp late, but that was OK with me because we weren’t planning on using him anyway.”

Designated as No. 3 in Game 1, Druckenmiller in Game 2 became the 49ers’ first rookie quarterback to start a game since Joe Montana in 1979. Young (concussion) and Brohm (hand) had been injured in the opener. The 49ers beat the St. Louis Rams for the 14th consecutive time, 15-12, but that was due in large part to the defense and not the error-stricken Druckenmiller. In what would be the first and only start of his career, he completed 10 of 28 passes for 102 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions.

“Druck got the win, man,” Mariucci said. “Druck threw a touchdown pass to J.J. Stokes. He’s got the highest winning percentage in the history of the NFL. I love Jim Druckenmiller, man. He was the greatest guy. Even after we let him go, in my quarterback room, we could call him up and talk to him. Now, was he the type of guy we needed? He was more of a pocket guy. He wasn’t as fluid as we needed him to be in the West Coast offense. We needed more of that athlete that could go left, right, scramble, create, bend. The thought was, ‘Hey, maybe we can play from the pocket.’ Then he never really got a chance.”

Druckenmiller’s passer rating during exhibition games was 54.4 as a rookie, 59.0 in 1998 and 65.0 in ’99. Of his 130 pass attempts during those three exhibition seasons, he completed just 53.1 percent. His longest rush was 3 yards.

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“Not smart, not smart, not smart,” one member of the 49ers’ scouting-coaching departments at the time said this month. “He had plenty of arm, plenty of size. He could run a little bit. It wasn’t like an Eli (Manning) or Tom Brady, just standing in the pocket, 5.2, 5.3 40 guys. He was athletic enough. But between accuracy and football smarts … I don’t think he ever really picked up on the coverages, man or zone. He could throw it through a brick wall but he didn’t know where to throw it. He’d pick somebody out and just throw it. I’ll be honest with you: I don’t think he ever improved. He never flashed.”

Druckenmiller didn’t help himself off the field, either. On an errand picking up food for veterans, he missed the team flight to a road game and had to fly commercial. He appeared on Howard Stern’s radio show to discuss riding his motorcycle onto the set of a San Francisco sports television show, the Playboy Playmate he was dating and his prodigious weightlifting, among other things. In July 1999, The Examiner’s Jeff Chadiha wrote that Druckenmiller “always has come off as the guy you find at a 10-keg bash, the gregarious drinker with a lampshade wedged over his head, and that is one reason why the 49ers have never been high on him.”

Shortly before the start of Druckenmiller’s second training camp, Mariucci said: “There was nothing that was conduct detrimental to the team. And he was always working hard. I don’t want people to think he was a party animal. But you want to nip these things in the bud.”

Nevertheless, the 49ers had so little faith in him that they signed free agent Ty Detmer in March 1998. Detmer, who played in Green Bay from 1992-95 when Mariucci was the Packers’ quarterbacks coach, was installed as No. 2 behind Young while Druckenmiller remained marooned on the third string.

When Policy and Clark departed in late 1998 to head the expansion Cleveland Browns, Walsh rejoined the 49ers as GM. Cerrato was fired and so, effectively, was Druckenmiller.

Publicly, Walsh suggested Druckenmiller’s ability to read defenses and passing accuracy needed major improvement and wondered if he would ever be suitable for the West Coast offense. In March 1999, a pro personnel executive for another NFL team watched what tape there was of Druckenmiller and gave him a reject grade. “Has had very disappointing progress to this point,” the scout wrote. “Will strong-arm things too much. Needs a little more touch. Needs more awareness. An overaged prospect coming out. Needs a lot of work.”

On July 22, 1999, Druckenmiller was acquitted of raping a 22-year-old Virginia Tech student in a jury trial in Christiansburg, Va. “The evidence just wasn’t there,” said the foreman of the nine-man, three-woman panel that deliberated for about an hour. Druckenmiller, his accuser and several friends went out partying on campus in Blacksburg. His accuser contended she was raped after a night of drinking and was too drunk to resist. Three men who knew Druckenmiller testified they heard his accuser say she wanted to have sex with him.

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With Young nearing the end of his career, Detmer having been traded to Cleveland and Druckenmiller all but banished, Walsh signed CFL standout Jeff Garcia in March. “Jeff Garcia was Bill’s deal,” Mariucci said. “Played at San José State. Played against Stanford when Bill was there. He was our style of quarterback. We had Steve Stenstrom and Druck.”

Finally, on Sept. 6, 1999, Walsh traded Druckenmiller to the Dolphins for what became two seventh-round picks. After a season in which he was inactive for 15 of 18 games, Druckenmiller was cut by Miami coach Dave Wannstedt in 2000 after the second of four exhibition games.

Young retired after one final concussion three games into the 1999 season. After two losing seasons as starter, Garcia guided the 49ers to records of 12-4 and 10-6 and playoff appearances in 2001 and ’02. He was voted to three straight Pro Bowls, all under Mariucci.

“Jeff Garcia was a completely smaller kind of guy,” Mariucci said. “Really, that’s the reason we didn’t go after Tom Brady (in 2000 and instead drafted quarterback Giovanni Carmazzi of Hofstra in the third round). He was a dropback guy. We committed. ‘Hey, we need an athletic guy that can run this offense.’ We learned that really from Jim Druckenmiller.”

Before their dalliance with Druckenmiller, the 49ers’ last dropback starting quarterback was Steve DeBerg in 1977-78. They won five Super Bowls from 1979-99 with Hall of Fame playmakers in Montana and Young, and none since.

The only quarterback from the Class of 1997 ever voted to the Pro Bowl was Carolina’s Jake Delhomme in 2005, and even then, he went undrafted. The 49ers, an elite organization that sustained its greatness by drafting based on need and fit, lost their way with the counterintuitive selection of Druckenmiller.

“I told people the continuation of the dynasty was in that decision,” Walsh later said, referring to the choice of Druckenmiller over Plummer. “It’s very simple. It was. That meant 10 more years of dynasty.”

(Top photo: George Wolf / Tri-Valley Herald via Getty Images)