Who are the greatest-value NFL Draft picks throughout the rich, proud, and extremely eventful franchise history of the Washington Commanders?
Who are the five best draft picks in Washington Commanders’ history? It would be fairly easy to list Sammy Baugh, Charley Taylor, Art Monk, Darrel Green, and Champ Bailey.
All made the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And Trent Williams will make it five years after he retires. But they were all first-round draft picks for the franchise.
I don’t for a second discount this. With the high number of first-round busts – in both Commanders’ history and throughout the league at large – hitting on a first-rounder is no small feat. Still, you do expect a lot of those selections.
Who were the greatest players who did not necessarily have the highest draft pedigree? Those might comprise the franchise’s greatest draft picks.
Here are five such players (along with twelve Honorable Mentions).
Honorable Mentions:
- Al DeMao (11th round, 1942)
- Eddie LeBaron (10th round, 1950)
- Gene Brito (17th round, 1951)
- Dick James (8th round, 1956)
- Vince Promuto (4th round, 1960)
- Len Hauss (9th round, 1964),
- Jerry Smith (9th round, 1965)
- George Starke (11th round, 1971)
- Dexter Manley (5th round, 1981)
- Mark Rypien (6th round, 1986)
- Steven Davis (4th round, 1996)
- Kamren Curl (7th round, 2020)
Wayne Millner – Former Commanders WR
- 8th-round, 1936 NFL Draft
- Pick No. 65 | Notre Dame Fighting Irish
The franchise now known as the Washington Commanders won their first league title in 1937. In that game, Wayne Millner caught nine balls for 160 receiving yards and two long touchdowns.
Both trips to the end-zone brought Washington back from a deficit to tie before Ed Justice scored the winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Millner’s career numbers don’t look like much compared to modern receivers. But there are several qualifiers that put those stats into perspective.
The NFL in its earliest decades was a running and defense league. The forward pass was still a new toy, not yet perfected. With the exception of Don Hutson of the Green Bay Packers, no wideout in that era consistently produced big numbers.
And Millner’s stats suffered from the fact that the Sammy Baugh-led offense was the 1930s equivalent of Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense. Washington spread the ball around.
Millner would retire as the leading receiver in franchise history. But he rarely led his own team in any given season, such was the depth among Washington’s pass catchers.
Millner also sacrificed three prime seasons to serve in the Navy during World War II. Something a number of players did in the 1940s with very little fanfare.
In addition to being one of the best of the early pass receivers, Millner’s blocking prowess was well-established, and he was considered an excellent defensive player as well. His all-around game was so admired that he was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1968.
Chris Hanburger – Former Commanders OLB
- 18th-round, 1965 NFL Draft
- Pick No. 245 | North Carolina Tar Heels
Chris Hanburger was taken with the No. 245 overall selection in the 1965 NFL Draft. No fewer than 46 years later, he would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In the history of the NFL, the New York Giants’ Rosey Brown is the only lower draft pick to be enshrined in Canton. Though there are 17 undrafted players enshrined as well.
Hanburger was a somewhat undersized outside linebacker out of North Carolina who played 187 games for the Washington Commanders. He was barely 215 pounds, but he played with quiet violence.
His striking clothesline tackle would be outlawed in today’s NFL. But in the 1960s and 1970s, it was a lethal weapon, earning him nine trips to the Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro honors five times.
For the second half of Hanburger’s career, he played in front of free safety Ken Houston. The prolific defensive back was another player drafted in the 200s who would make the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
However, Houston was a draft pick of the old Houston Oilers. Hanburger was drafted by Washington in the same year they found honorable mention Jerry Smith in the ninth round – not a bad haul by any stretch.
Larry Brown – Former Commanders RB
- 8th-round, 1969 NFL Draft
- Pick No. 191 | Kansas State Wildcats
Larry Brown arrived in the eighth round from Kansas State in the 1969 NFL Draft. It was the year that O.J. Simpson went No. 1 overall. There would be 35 other running backs drafted.
Brown was the first Washington Commanders running back to gain more than 1,000 rushing yards in a season. Over the course of his first five years, he averaged more than 1,000 yards.
His galloping jaunts through defenses, whether on broken runs or after screen passes, became weekly highlights for teams that didn’t always have a lot of offensive productivity.
Brown arrived at a fortunate time. The legendary Vince Lombardi had just taken over as coach and he saw something special in the skinny back who had mostly been a blocker in college. He also was the first coach to figure out that the back had a hearing problem that hindered his play.
Lombardi had him fitted with a special helmet that contained a hearing aid, and Brown took off. Pretty soon, he had supplanted Ray McDonald, the No. 1 overall draft pick of 1967 – who was faster and outweighed him by more than 50 pounds.
The legendary coach didn’t care. He wanted the little tough guy who could actually run.
Under George Allen’s grinding style, Brown became the league MVP in 1972, leading Washington to its first Super Bowl. But the heavy usage also took its toll on the 195-pound back.
After those five magical years, injuries hit and his production fell off. He would be out of the league a few years later. But he remains number three on the franchise’s all-time rushing list, behind only John Riggins – a first-round pick of the New York Jets, and Clinton Portis – a second-round pick of the Denver Broncos.
Monte Coleman – Former Commanders LB
- 11th-round, 1979 NFL Draft
- Pick No. 289 | Central Arkansas Bears
Monte Coleman made about a thousand tackles for the team now known as the Washington Commanders. Historical tackling stats are notoriously sketchy, but it’s safe to say that no player has ever made more tackles for the team other than Darrell Green.
Coleman is also second to Green for most games played in franchise history.
Despite this, Coleman was not a regular starter at outside linebacker. For much of his career, he was a special teams ace and an outstanding coverage option who played primarily in passing situations.
But Coleman was the heart and soul of the team during its finest years. He was a member of all three Super Bowl-winning teams. His famous quote after the team avenged the “body bag” loss by upsetting the Philadelphia Eagles in the playoffs in January 1991, captured the attitude:
"“People threw dirt on us all year. They didn’t know we had shovels.”"
Coleman was taken with the No. 289 overall selection in the 1979 NFL Draft. That year, the No. 1 overall pick was another linebacker – Ohio State’s Tom Cousineau.
After a couple of years playing in Canada, Cousineau had an NFL career that lasted 66 games. Coleman played in 217.
When his long playing career was finally over, Coleman returned to his alma mater, Arkansas Pine Bluff, where he would serve as a coach for 15 years.
Brian Mitchell – Former Commanders RB/KR
- 5th-round, 1990 NFL Draft
- Pick No. 130 | Southwestern Louisiana
The greatest wide receiver in NFL history, Jerry Rice, is currently first on the career total yards list. The iconic running back Walter Payton is third. Sandwiched in between them was the No. 130 overall selection in the 1990 NFL Draft, Brian Mitchell.
After playing quarterback at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Mitchell would transition to running back in the NFL. As all Washington Commanders fans know, he would make his real mark on special teams – where he would become one of the greatest players in NFL history within this key discipline.
Mitchell was an excellent punt returner. He was not the fastest player to return kicks, nor was he the shiftiest. But he was as tough as they come and he understood the position better than anyone who has ever played.
He knew when to take chances and when to play it safe. Mitchell knew that touchdowns rarely happened on returns and that turning it up-field to get the maximum possible yardage was job No. 1.
But Mitchell was far more than a return man. He ran the special teams, as a coach on the field. He knew the Xs and Os, and he knew how to motivate.
Mitchell could will his teammates into better play through his energy and commitment. Much of his career was spent in the decline after the Joe Gibbs-1 era, but the player never let his teammates forget what a championship team looked like.
There will be a lot of attention paid to whoever the Commanders select in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft. Hopefully, he will turn out to be a stud. But history suggests that one or two of the players taken later on could end up having just as big an impact on the team’s fortunes.
Let’s draft.