Dave Wyman: My NFL Draft experience was almost completely different

Every April when the NFL Draft comes around, I reflect on the year I was drafted and think about the college football players that are waiting to hear where they will quite possibly spend the rest of their lives.

A full seven-round Seahawks mock draft – with three trades

Where you might retire, meet your future wife, have children, entrench yourself in the community – all based on what a few scouts, coaches and NFL GMs have decided in a dark film room that you have no control over.

It’s eerie, and in 2007 it really hit home for me.

I was drafted by the Seahawks in the second round of the 1987 draft out of Stanford, and it was pretty straightforward. I packed up my things and headed to Seattle, played here for six years, finished my career in Denver, then moved back to Seattle. Now I have been associated with the Seahawks in one way or another for roughly 40 years.

But in 2007, I found out that my life would have been entirely different based on a “tiebreaker” decision and a huge fight in the San Diego Chargers draft room back in ’87.

Jim Mora Jr. had been a quality control coach for the Chargers in 1987, but was the Seahawks’ defensive backs coach 20 years later (and would eventually become the head coach in 2009). So I was out at Seahawks practice watching the new players as I prepared for my sixth year working with the pregame and postgame radio broadcasts when suddenly Mora came over, introduced himself and dropped this on me.

“You were part of the biggest draft day argument I’ve ever seen.”

I had no idea where he was going with that, but he launched into a very animated recap of what happened in the Chargers draft room in late April 1987. Apparently then-Chargers head coach Al Saunders, who had recruited both me and my brother Mike out of high school at Cal, really wanted to take me with their first-round pick (No. 24 overall). But San Diego general manager Bobby Beathard wanted to draft a fullback/tight end out of Texas A&M named Rod Bernstine.

At first I thought it was amusing, but it became more and more bizarre the further Mora explained, and the more animated he became.

“It was like the clock was ticking down,” Mora continued, “10… 9… 8… and finally the owner (Alex Spanos) stepped in and said ‘Just take Bernstine!’ It was amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it!”

As Jim shook his head and turned away, my vision started to tunnel.

I was born in San Diego! My family would’ve followed me there just as they did here in Seattle! I’d have a different wife! I’d have different kids! I’d have had a totally different career!

I understand that people make decisions and follow a path in their lives, but when your whole life comes down to what a few coaches and an NFL GM decide in a dark film room and on a football field, it’s freaky. And I think about that story every year when the NFL draft comes around.

The other thing it brings to mind is that throughout our interviews with Seahawks GM John Schneider this year, it’s clear he’s very adamant about organization and process and how that’s applied on draft day. John had been very clear that when there are arguments like the one back in 1987, it makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing.

Another curiosity is the pundits that talk about you as if you are some sort of commodity – which you are.

I watched the 1987 draft at my brother’s condo in Reno, Nevada, because my parents didn’t have access to cable where we lived. When Mel Kiper Jr. described my profile on ESPN, I thought, “Who is this guy and why does he know so much about me?”

On the draft broadcast, Chris Berman mentioned that he heard my name as the latest pick by the Seahawks. And Kiper took it from there.

“Very productive player. He’s got a nose for the ball. He’s an intense kid. He would have been a top 10 pick if it wasn’t for that knee injury. He was all over the field,” Kiper said. “… By and large you’re talking about a player here who at the end of the year was playing as good as any linebacker in the country, and would have carried a higher rating than (No. 5 overall pick) Mike Junkin into the draft if it wasn’t for that injury.”

After the draft, my grandmother told me, “You need to buy that guy a really nice bottle of wine.” Mel was very gracious indeed.

We had Kiper on the show back in 2015, and he not only remembered what my situation was but still knew very specific things about my status back in 1987, such as a good number of details about the injury I suffered playing for Stanford in 1984 that knocked me out of the first round.

Related: Total recall? Mel Kiper has a really good memory of Dave Wyman

That brings to mind another thing we’ve learned about John Schneider: he’s a stickler on the medical side of these college prospects. Injury history is very important to him, and having talked with him over the years, I’m sure that he would not have drafted me.

I had a total dislocation of my right knee during my junior year at Stanford that required the trainers to hold my thigh while the doctors grabbed my foot and relocated my lower leg right there on the sidelines, while my brother Mike (a Stanford defensive tackle) held my hand.

I remember them drawing little X’s on my lower leg and constantly looking for a pulse. Once about 30 minutes went by, the doctor – 1972 Rose Bowl MVP Don Bunce, who had obviously since become an orthopedic surgeon – told me, “You’re going to be OK.”

I asked him, “Do you think I can play next week?”

Bunce looked at me and said, “NO.”

Turned out that I was very close to amputation. My ACL, PCL and LCL were all torn off. My hamstring and iliotibial band had snapped off the bone. Lots of times the knee cap can slice through the main artery.

Two years after that, I was a Sporting News All-American, All-Pac-10, and then a second-round Seattle Seahawks draft pick.

Because of that, understandably there were lots of teams that were not going to touch me in the draft. Thank God the Seahawks gave me a chance back, and I feel blessed for that every draft that goes by.

Seattle Seahawks NFL Draft coverage

• Insiders: The case for Tetairoa McMillan to Seahawks at No. 18
• Brock’s Seahawks Draft Profile: Bama’s ‘powerful’ guard has one concern
• Why Seahawks could have trouble trading back in first round of draft
• Stacy Rost: Three things to know about Seahawks heading into draft
• Why Brock believes Seattle Seahawks will ‘move all over’ in draft

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