The McGinn Files: ‘One of the all-time athletes.’ The talk about Deion Sanders before the 1989 draft
James Holden Editor’s note: This is the seventh installment of The McGinn Files, a weekly series looking back at NFL drafts of the past 35 years. The foundation of the series is Bob McGinn’s transcripts of his interviews with NFL general managers, personnel directors and scouts annually since 1985.
It wasn’t as if Deion Sanders was one guy as a multisport prep star in Fort Myers, Fla., another as an all-time great during his three-sport run at Florida State and still a third in professional sports as a Hall of Fame cornerback in football and a speedy leadoff hitter/center fielder in baseball.
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The self-styled “Prime Time” since high school, Sanders has carried himself in a flamboyant but altogether consistent fashion his whole adult life.
“He did it all the same,” said LeRoy Butler, Sanders’ teammate for two seasons at FSU. “He wasn’t fake. I can play with guys like that. What you see is what you got. Deion was platinum on and off the field. He’s the same guy today that he was when he wore No. 2 at Florida State.”
And guess what? Virtually the entire NFL scouting fraternity in 1989 saw success coming for Sanders.
“I go to Florida State,” Ken Herock, then-director of player personnel for the Atlanta Falcons, said last week. “I’m thinking this is the best athlete I’ve seen. I watch his tape. This guy is the best I’ve ever seen at his position.”
Herock would be the decision-maker fortunate enough to select Sanders with the No. 5 pick in a 1989 draft packed up top with future Hall of Famers: Troy Aikman, the UCLA quarterback who went No. 1 to Dallas; Barry Sanders, the Oklahoma State running back who went No. 3 to Detroit; and Derrick Thomas, the Alabama linebacker who went No. 4 to Kansas City.
Many of Herock’s peers saw the same unlimited potential when they witnessed Sanders play in Tallahassee or run at the combine in Indianapolis.
The late Frank Smouse, the Cincinnati Bengals’ assistant director of player personnel, rated Sanders as the No. 1 prospect in the draft.
“Because he would be able to cover the best receiver and he’d be able to return punts,” said Smouse. “He could cover (Jerry) Rice tomorrow as good as anybody can. He’s probably the surest bet because (Tony) Mandarich may have problems with the way-far-outside speed rusher. Deion doesn’t have any problems. He acts like an All-Pro, but what’s the difference? They all act that way, anyway.”
Mandarich, who went No. 2 to Green Bay, was an all-time flop.
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“The things that Mandarich can do as an athlete in their own right are just as phenomenal as this guy does at his,” said Dick Corrick, the Houston Oilers’ director of college scouting. “As an athlete, (Sanders) is just truly phenomenal.”
At North Fort Myers High School, Sanders was a standout baseball player, a prolific quarterback in football and a second-team All-State player in basketball, with a 24.3-point scoring average as a senior.
Besides his consensus All-American exploits in football for the Seminoles, Sanders starred for their baseball team and also ran track, qualifying for the U.S. Olympic trials with a 10.26 clocking in the 100 meters.
“From a standpoint of physical tools, just like Bo Jackson,” said Dick Steinberg, the director of player development for the New England Patriots, who was in his 21st year as an NFL scout. “The most dominating college defensive back I ever saw before this guy was Willie Buchanon. I’m not saying Willie was a great pro; he was a real good pro. But this guy dominates games more so than Willie Buchanon did. As a punt returner, too. He’s a great punt returner. This guy has to be one of the all-time athletes.”
Buchanon, of San Diego State, was drafted No. 7 by the Packers in 1973. Only two pure cornerbacks, Mike Haynes (fifth in 1976) and Mossy Cade (sixth in 1984), had been taken earlier in the previous 16 drafts.
“He’s probably Mike Haynes,” said Steve Ortmayer, the director of football operations for the San Diego Chargers, who expressed no reservations about Sanders.
Asked how Sanders might stack up against Cade, Smouse replied, “Mossy Cade is a truck horse compared to this guy.”
Thirty years ago, pro football still was as much about running the ball as it was about throwing it. From 1986 to 1990 there were either five or six running backs selected in the first round. In that same five-year period, the total number of corners taken in the first round was eight.
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“He makes you play with 10 guys on offense,” said Joe Woolley, the director of player personnel for the Philadelphia Eagles. “Does it with such grace and ease. Return kicks and play defense. Best I’ve ever seen.”
The Oakland Raiders didn’t have a first-round draft choice, but Ron Wolf, Al Davis’ lead personnel man, had done his homework.
“I’ve been in this business a long time,” said Wolf, who got his start with the Silver and Black in 1963. “There is always the rare player. Deion Sanders is just a rare, gifted, talented human being. I don’t know what you could find wrong with him, but I’m sure if you work hard, you can do it.”
Sanders’ love of baseball gave some teams pause.
“Good luck,” said Tom Boisture, the New York Giants’ director of player personnel. “The only thing wrong with him is he’s playing baseball. Great athlete, and he loves to play. You won’t have any trouble getting him on the practice field.”
Sanders was drafted in the sixth round of the MLB draft in 1985 by the Kansas City Royals but turned down a reported $75,000 signing bonus. Later, after signing with the New York Yankees, he played 28 games in their minor-league system in 1988 and 103 games in ’89.
“Deion is telling everybody he wants to take a crack at both,” an NFC personnel director said. “He is playing in the (minors) for the Yankees and doing well. If I was the director of personnel for Green Bay and took Deion, I would be afraid he would say, ‘Screw it, I want to go play baseball.’ Whereas the smart, safe route is to take Mandarich.”
Besides the baseball option, Sanders was fined $800 and given six months probation for grabbing the blouse of a store clerk and striking an auxiliary police officer during a 1988 Christmas Eve dispute at a Fort Myers shopping mall. He pleaded no contest to two battery charges and one count of disorderly conduct.
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“He’s got everything you want,” said Tom Braatz, the Packers’ football operations director. “He’s got Hall of Fame ability. You’ve just got to put up with his Neon Deion.”
Another personnel director wrote in his report of Sanders: “Loud and brash. Michael Irvin type. Needs guidance. This guy has everything you look for in a DB if his mouth doesn’t get him into trouble.”
Sanders adopted the “Prime Time” persona after one of his buddies in high school came up with it after watching him stand out in a high school basketball game. He stepped out of a stretch limo wearing a tuxedo before his final regular-season game in college against rival Florida.
“In my dormitory room at Florida State, I created this image,” Sanders said during his Hall of Fame induction speech in Canton. “This thing that you can imagine. You could love him or you could hate him, but he was ‘Prime Time.’
“I pre-rehearsed the sayings because I knew I had the substance. I knew I had the goods. I knew I had the work ethic. But I needed to secure myself enough that my mama (Connie Knight) would never have to work another day of her life.”
His mother would later say of Deion: “It’s all a big show. He’s not even talkative when he’s not being ‘Prime Time.’”
Southern Cal’s Ronnie Lott, whose Hall of Fame career as a cornerback-safety began as the No. 8 selection by the San Francisco 49ers in 1981, was on the minds of some scouts.
“But Ronnie Lott could never run like this guy,” said Mike Allman, the Seattle Seahawks’ player personnel director. “There’s no question that his ability should allow him to be a top-notch player. He seems to be the kind of guy that likes the spotlight. If he can just concentrate on football when he gets up to this level and makes sure he focuses in on what he’s doing.”
In the Cowboys’ draft meetings, longtime scout Walt Yowarsky made it clear that he thought Sanders lacked courage in run support. Reluctance as a tackler was an issue that would dog Sanders throughout his pro career. Coming out of FSU, however, few scouts even mentioned it. All Woolley said was “yessir” when asked if Sanders would tackle.
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The combine was in its infancy in early February 1989 when Sanders and several hundred other prospects convened at the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis. Sanders didn’t stay long, but his appearance was memorable, to say the least.
“He told us he was going to run a 4.2,” Butler recalled. “‘I’m gonna put my shades on and my trench coat and get the hell out of there.’ That’s what he told the boys. He said he wasn’t doing all that stuff. ‘I’m a shutdown corner.’”
Assigned DB25 clothing, Sanders measured 5-foot-11 ¾ and weighed 182 pounds. He took the 12-minute, 50-question Wonderlic intelligence test, scoring 13. He refused to participate in the bench press, vertical jump, broad jump or three agility runs.
When it came time for the 40-yard dash, Sanders walked in when his name was called and shed his sweats. Bobby Williams, a veteran scout, served as the combine starter for a number of years.
“Bobby later told me that he asked Deion if he wanted to warm up,” said an AFC personnel man. “He said that Sanders’ reply was, ‘That’s for white folks.’”
Each of the 28 teams had most of their scouts watching and timing from the seats in the dome. There also were two scouts seated at tables adjacent to the sideline AstroTurf surface timing the 10- and 20-yard splits as well as the final 40.
In my archives, I have the master sheets disseminated by the combine to teams in the days after the event. Sanders ran the 40 twice. On the first, his official times were 4.29 and 4.27. On the second, his official times were 4.27 and 4.33.
One way teams arrived at a time was to throw out the highest number, throw out the lowest and average the other two. That would be 4.28. Another way was to average all four times. That would be 4.29. Because it was on AstroTurf, a surface generally regarded as harder and thus faster than the FieldTurf of Lucas Oil Stadium today, some teams would add in the vicinity of .05 to equate it to FieldTurf.
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“I got 4.27 on him,” Herock said. “I’ll never forget that. Let me tell you this: He never trained for that 40 like these guys today that go to these facilities and work on starts and how to run the 40. He had a track background. If he had trained, I would say easily he’d be not 4.2 something but 4.1 something.”
Famously, Sanders went into the opposite tunnel after his second 40 and eventually out of the building, completing his combine.
“It was like a jog over, give a wave and take off,” said Herock. “Adios.”
Butler attended the Seminoles’ pro day that spring, but he can’t recall Sanders being there. Herock didn’t go, either, not even to discuss the baseball option with Sanders. His mind was made up.
The new brain trust in Dallas made it known that Aikman was the Cowboys’ guy at No. 1. Herock asked Falcons executive vice president Taylor Smith, owner Rankin Smith’s son, to find out what the Packers would do at No. 2. Braatz had scouted in Atlanta for 22 years before joining the Packers in 1987.
“Taylor knew Tom Braatz because he worked with him for so many years,” said Herock. “He finds out. He said, ‘Ken, Tom’s going to take Tony Mandarich.’”
Ten days before the draft, Herock was on hand to watch Barry Sanders when he ran an unexpectedly swift 4.39. “I was at the workout with Wayne Fontes,” he said. “When we saw Barry work, Wayne goes to me: ‘You don’t have to worry about him. He’s going to be a Detroit Lion.’ I knew Wayne wasn’t bullshitting, that that was his guy.
“I had three done. I wasn’t sure what Kansas City would do. When they took Derrick (Thomas), it was just like you had the biggest gift you ever received in scouting. That’s how good he was.”
On Friday, two days before the draft, Sanders told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he wanted to play for the Falcons and would play baseball, not football, if selected by the Lions.
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“Most of these teams want to tone me down, make me into a good ol’ boy,” Sanders told Sunday sports editor Glenn Hannigan. “But Deion isn’t a good ol’ boy. Deion is ‘Prime Time.’ I’m really excited about Falcons coach (Marion) Campbell. He doesn’t want to change my image; he wants me to enhance it.”
Sanders left his Class AA team in Albany, N.Y., for a news conference in Atlanta following his selection.
“When he came to us, he came off an airplane wearing these gold chains and a hat,” recalled Herock. “That was him selling himself. He was like a money machine. He was always thinking, ‘How can I make the most money here?’”
According to Herock, not only wasn’t Sanders a distraction in Atlanta, but he was also the player who kept the locker room together during some bad seasons. He brought life to the Falcons, just as he helped the Seminoles finish second and then third in the final AP polls for 1987 and ’88, their highest finishes ever to that point.
“We all looked up to him: me, Terrell Buckley, Martin Mayhew,” said Butler, who played free safety during Sanders’ final season before being moved to field corner by coach Bobby Bowden as his replacement in 1989. “He always taught us about branding. He made it like a business. He was, like, the first guy to ever do that. He was brilliant doing it.
“If I ever got a pick or a fumble, he was the first one to congratulate you. He didn’t have that kind of persona where you’d be jealous of him. You’d always pull for him because he was always pulling for you. He’s the ultimate teammate.”
Sanders also might have been the first athlete in history to develop his own logo. Naturally, it was “Prime Time.”
The advent of unrestricted free agency in 1993 gave Sanders alternatives after his five-year rookie contract expired in March 1994. After playing 92 games for the Braves and Reds that summer, Sanders signed a one-year plus an option contract in mid-September to join the San Francisco 49ers.
“He came in asking for a lot of money,” Herock said. “There was no way we could pay it, really. We knew there had to be some sort of tampering going on to be in San Francisco. He even gave his word to (Falcons executive VP) Taylor Smith that he’d give us the option of matching whatever he got. Well, in the end, we matched, but he said no. Because they were probably going to the Super Bowl.”
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Nevertheless, Sanders and Brett Favre, the Falcons’ second-round draft choice in 1991, remain Herock’s co-equals as the best picks of his career. He has no hard feelings toward Deion. In fact, Sanders remains his favorite player.
The addition of Sanders allowed the 49ers to shift Merton Hanks from cornerback to free safety, his best position. Despite playing just 14 games (12 starts) in 1994, Sanders was named NFL defensive player of the year after returning six interceptions for 303 yards (50.5) and three touchdowns.
“I had watched him from the time he first came into the league,” 49ers coach George Seifert told me in 2006. “You watch all the theatrics and so forth. I tended to be a little conservative. There’s some things you say, ‘My God, how could a guy do this?’
“But then all of sudden I’m coaching him, and in the locker room he’s great, and in the meetings he’s great, and in practice he’s great. There’s no bullshit. He’s a pro. Game time, he would sometimes be theatrical, but he contained himself for the most part. I’d have to say I really enjoyed coaching him.”
After a few games, the 49ers simply let Sanders cover his side of the field and push coverage to the other side.
“He’d let his guy get behind him so he could try to make a pick,” Bill McPherson, the 49ers’ assistant head coach, told me in 2007. “As coaches, we’d be, ‘Oh, shit, what’s he doing?’”
“Then he would never come in the huddle. George Seifert was going crazy. George was a stickler for everybody coming to the defensive huddle in practices and games. He’d never come. He’d just say, ‘Who I got?’ I’ve never seen an athlete like him.
“Ronnie (Lott) knocked your ding-dong off. He worked to be a corner. But this guy just has so much natural talent.”
Bill Walsh, who had left the organization by then and was coaching Stanford, went to the 29th Super Bowl in Miami as a fan.
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“He’s the best coverage corner in history,” Walsh told me in 2006. “He played extremely well. Now, would the 49ers have won the Super Bowl without him? Oh, of course. It wasn’t as though he made the difference any more than Fred Dean did (in 1981). But it was great having him.”
The Chargers were no match for the 49ers, losing 49-26. Part of their plan on offense had been to pop jumbo back Natrone Means through the line and into Sanders’ sector just to see if Sanders would turn down the hit before millions of viewers.
“He’s not a complete player,” Billy Devaney, San Diego’s director of player personnel, told me a few days before the Super Bowl. “He can go through a whole game and not get his uniform dirty. The great ones are great cover guys, first and foremost. This guy goes to great lengths to avoid contact. The great ones, while they can not be the most aggressive guys, they’re certainly not going to shy away from anything.”
For that reason, Devaney ranked Sanders as the NFL’s second-best cornerback behind Pittsburgh’s Rod Woodson. Pro Football Weekly, in conjunction with scouts across the NFL, ranked Sanders as the No. 1 cornerback entering the 1995, ’96, ’97, ’98 and ’99 seasons. In 1998, the publication rated him as the third-best player in the league behind Barry Sanders and Favre.
When the 49ers decided it was impossible for them to compete financially, Sanders wound up signing a long-term contract with the Dallas Cowboys in mid-September 1995 that contained an NFL-record signing bonus of $12.99 million. Sanders missed seven games that season because of arthroscopic knee surgery; otherwise, he probably would have made the Pro Bowl nine straight years (1991-99).
The Cowboys won their third Super Bowl in the span of four years, beating Pittsburgh 27-17. In Sanders’ last four seasons with the Cowboys, the team won just one playoff game.
Sanders had played baseball professionally for eight straight summers before giving it up in 1996. He had dabbled as a wide receiver starting with the Falcons in 1992, but in ’96 he became the Cowboys’ most productive wide receiver behind Irvin with 36 receptions for 475 yards (13.2) and one touchdown.
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Having taken a hiatus as a punt returner from 1993 to 1996, Sanders was back at it in ’97. In ’98, his 15.6-yard average led the NFL and was a career best. Only Devin Hester, with 20, has scored more non-offensive touchdowns than Sanders, who finished with 19.
Entering the 1999 season, draft analyst and football historian Joel Buchsbaum categorized Sanders in Pro Football Weekly as “the best cover corner in football dating back at least to ex-49er Jimmy Johnson.” His Hall of Fame career extended from 1961 to 1976.
Sanders probably had his poorest season in 2000 for the Washington Redskins, who signed him that June to a backloaded contract that contained an $8 million signing bonus. He notified Redskins coach Marty Schottenheimer of his retirement on the eve of training camp in 2001.
With his baseball career (.263 lifetime batting average, .391 on-base percentage, 186 stolen bases, 39 home runs in 641 games) over, Sanders came back to football and started six of 25 games for the Baltimore Ravens in 2004-05. Shortly thereafter, he moved into television as a football analyst.
“Deion could have played in the NBA,” said Butler, his lifelong friend and semifinalist as a safety for the Hall of Fame classes of 2018 and ’19. “I know people bring up Bo Jackson, Jim Thorpe and all these guys. But there will never be another Deion Sanders.”
Next week: JaMarcus Russell
(Photo: Eric Gay / Associated Press)
