An All-State running back at Hazlewood, Chris Goode was part of the famed family of football brothers who helped make the Golden Bears a powerhouse in Class 1A and 2A football in Alabama before joining the Crimson Tide.
Goode went on to the NFL, too. But he didn’t get there until the 253rd selection of the 1987 draft. By that time, Goode was a cornerback.
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Goode played in eight regular-season games and a playoff contest as a rookie. He started half the games in each of the next two seasons before becoming a regular for his final four campaigns with the Colts.
Among Alabama players who have been chosen in the NFL Draft, only one selected at No. 216 or later has started more games than Goode – cornerback Mark McMillian with 81 after being chosen at No. 272 in the 1992 draft.
During his seven NFL seasons, Goode had seven interceptions and six fumble recoveries in 96 regular-season games, with 66 starts.
Goode’s brother Kerry Goode remained a running back and also got drafted. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers picked him at No. 167 in 1988.
Kerry Goode was a seventh-round pick. In this year’s draft, the 167th selection will come in the fifth round.
Chris Goode was a 10th-round pick at No. 253 in 1987.
When the NFL teams make their seventh-round selections on April 27 in Detroit, the round will start with the 221st choice and end with the 257th pick, which will be the final one in the 89th NFL Draft.
Thirty-three players have been drafted from Alabama with those selections.
Thirty-three Alabama players also have been seventh-round picks, but not the same 33. The seventh-round picks ranged from 53rd to 255th selections. Over the decades, the picks comprising the seventh round have changed as the number of teams in the NFL has increased and the league has added compensatory choices as part of its free-agency plan.
The Alabama players who have been picked with the 221st through 257th selections of an NFL Draft include:
No. 221 pick: Ted Cook, end, Brooklyn Dodgers, 1944.
Cook never played for Brooklyn, but he did play four NFL seasons -- one for the Detroit Lions and three for the Green Bay Packers -- after missing three seasons for World War II. Cook had caught 61 passes for 891 yards and five touchdowns in his NFL career when the Packers traded him to the Washington Redskins for defensive end John Martinkovic, a sixth-round selection in the 1951 NFL Draft. Cook never played for Washington, but Martinkovic was a three-time Pro Bowler for Green Bay.
No. 222 pick: Derrick Pope, linebacker, Miami Dolphins, 2004; Thomas Fletcher, long snapper, Carolina Panthers, 2021.
Pope played four seasons with Miami. His 55 games included 14 starts, with nine coming in his final season. He had two interceptions in his NFL career – one in his next-to-last game and one in his final game. His interceptions came against Tom Brady and Carson Palmer. Pope scored a touchdown in his first NFL season when he returned a fumble recovery by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Tim Rattay 1 yard with 3:10 to play in the Dolphins’ 24-17 victory on Nov. 28, 2004.
Fletcher spent his rookie season on Carolina’s injured reserve, then spent a season as the long snapper for the XFL’s Seattle Sea Dragons.
No. 224 pick: DeMarcco Hellams, safety, Atlanta Falcons, 2023.
Hellams did not play a defensive snap in his first three games, then played 173 in the final three games of his rookie season as he made four starts in 2023.
No. 225 pick: Bryne Diehl, punter, New York Giants, 1995.
Four Alabama punters have been drafted. Diehl is the only one who did not appear in an NFL regular-season game. The other drafted punters were Greg Gantt in 1974, Chris Mohr in 1989 and JK Scott in 2018.
No. 226 pick: Steve Bowman, halfback, New York Giants, 1966.
Bowman played in four games for New York in 1966 before a preseason injury in 1967 ended his career.
No. 228 pick: Austin Shepherd, tackle, Minnesota Vikings, 2015.
Shepherd played in 14 games as a reserve for Minnesota in 2015.
No. 229 pick: Wayne Davis, linebacker, St. Louis Cardinals, 1987.
The former Gordo High School standout straddled the Cardinals’ move from St. Louis to Phoenix. Davis played in 12 games for St. Louis in 1987 and 16 games for Phoenix in 1988. Davis also played for the Orlando Thunder in the World League of American Football in 1991.
No. 230 pick: Cecil Dowdy, linebacker, Cleveland Browns, 1967.
While Dowdy never played in an NFL regular-season game, he was on the Orange County Ramblers of the Continental Football League in 1968.
No. 231 pick: Wes Neighbors, center, Houston Oilers, 1987.
Neighbors’ father, Billy Neighbors, was the 43rd selection in the 1962 NFL Draft by the Washington Redskins, but he spent his eight pro seasons in the AFL and was an all-star in 1963 and 1964.
No. 235 picks: Ahmaad Galloway, running back, Denver Broncos, 2003; Cornelius Wortham, linebacker, Seattle Seahawks, 2005.
Galloway played for the Scottish Claymores in 2004 and the Frankfurt Galaxy in 2005 in NFL Europe. He ran for 657 yards and two touchdowns on 207 carries across the two seasons.
Wortham played in eight games for Seattle in 2005.
No. 236 picks: Dave Brown, wingback, New York Giants, 1943; Ralph Staten, defensive back, Baltimore Ravens, 1997; Bo Scarbrough, running back, Dallas Cowboys, 2018.
As a rookie fullback, Brown ran for 131 yards on 32 carries, caught five passes for 29 yards, averaged 15.1 yards on seven punt returns and intercepted six passes. Brown missed the next two seasons while in the military. The former Ensley standout returned to New York in 1946 for two more seasons as a wingback.
Staten intercepted five passes in two seasons with Baltimore, including two in a 31-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Dec. 7, 1997. Staten also played three seasons in the Canadian Football League.
Scarbrough ran for 377 yards and one touchdown on 89 carries in six games for the Detroit Lions in his first NFL action in 2019. In 2020, he played in only one game, running for 31 yards on six carries for the Seattle Seahawks before an injury knocked him out. Scarbrough didn’t make it to the field during a regular-season game in 2021, then helped the Birmingham Stallions win the USFL championship in 2022. He got hurt in the Stallions’ first game of 2023 and, after a comeback attempt in 2024, retired.
No. 239 pick: Norm Mosley, tailback, Philadelphia Eagles, 1945.
Mosley’s career at Alabama had a three-year gap because of military service in World War II. He returned to play two seasons for the Crimson Tide after being drafted by Philadelphia. His NFL action came with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He ran for 39 yards and one touchdown on 13 carries, returned seven punts and one kickoff and threw two incomplete passes in 11 games in 1948. From 1951 through 1961, Mosley worked as the football coach at Talladega High School and compiled a 60-44-5 record.
No. 240 pick: Ed White, end, Redskins, 1950.
White and 12 of the other Alabama players drafted from No. 221 through No. 257 never played in an NFL regular-season game.
No. 243 pick: David Ray, kicker, Cleveland Browns, 1966.
Ray is the only Alabama player drafted purely as a kicker. It took him three years to get in a game, and his first regular assignment as an NFL kicker came in 1970 with the Rams. Ray kicked for Los Angeles for five seasons, and he led the NFL in field goals with 30 and points with 130 in 1973.
No. 244 pick: Joe Curtis, end, Chicago Cardinals, 1953.
No. 246 picks: Jeff Rutledge, quarterback, Los Angeles Rams, 1979; Warren Lyles, defensive tackle, San Diego Chargers, 1982; Kenneth Darby, running back, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2007; Joshua Frazier, defensive tackle, Pittsburgh Steelers, 2018.
With 117, Rutledge has played in the most NFL regular-season games among the Alabama alumni who entered the league as the No. 221 through No. 257 picks in the draft. The bulk of those games came as a holder on extra-point and field-goal attempts. Rutledge started 10 games during his 14 seasons in the NFL. He completed 274-of-526 passes for 3,628 yards with 16 touchdowns and 29 interceptions. Rutledge also appeared in 15 postseason games, including victories in Super Bowl XXI with the New York Giants and Super Bowl XXVI with the Washington Redskins. He completed his only postseason pass for a 23-yard gain in the Giants’ 49-3 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Jan. 4, 1987. In Washington’s 41-38 overtime victory against the Detroit Lions on Nov. 4, Rutledge threw for 363 yards after entering the game with less than five minutes remaining in the third quarter. This is the third-most passing yards for a player who did not start the game since the AFL-NFL merger.
Lyles is in the Cotton Bowl Hall of Fame for his play as Alabama’s middle guard in a 30-2 victory over Baylor on Jan. 1, 1981.
Darby played in only one game as a rookie for Tampa Bay. But in the next three seasons, he played in 40 games for the St. Louis Rams, ran for 399 yards and two touchdowns on 93 carries, caught 47 passes for 340 yards and one touchdown and returned 11 kickoffs for a 20.6-yard average.
Released by the Steelers at the end of his first training camp, Frazier was on the Detroit Lions’ practice squad in 2018, ended up on injured reserve after joining the Alliance of American Football’s Birmingham Iron in 2019, got drafted by but didn’t play for the XFL’s Orlando Guardians in 2022, was briefly with the Massachusetts Pirates of the Indoor Football League in 2023 and has joined the Rapid City Marshals for the Arena Footblal League’s 2024 revival.
No. 247 picks: Bob Conway, back, Green Bay Packers, 1953; Steve Whitman, fullback, San Diego Chargers, 1980; Brandon Deaderick, defensive end, New England Patriots, 2010; Brad Smelley, tight end, Cleveland Browns, 2012.
Deaderick played in 60 games with 17 starts in five seasons – three with New England and one apiece with the Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints. He had 5.5 sacks in regular-season games and another in the Patriots’ 21-17 loss to the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI.
Smelley played in two games for Cleveland in 2012 and two for the Houston Texans in 2013. His only NFL reception gained 3 yards in the Browns’ 34-12 loss to the Denver Broncos on Dec. 23, 2012.
No. 250 pick: D. Joe Gambrell, center, Los Angeles Rams, 1946.
Gambrell didn’t play for Los Angeles, but he did catch for the Oneonta Red Sox of the Class C Canadian-American League in 1947.
No. 253 picks: James Mallard, wide receiver, St. Louis Cardinals, 1981; Chris Goode, defensive back, Indianapolis Colts, 1987; Xzavier Dickson, linebacker, New England Patriots, 2015.
Mallard was a track star who played one season of football at Alabama. A two-time winner of the SEC outdoor 200-meter dash championship, a heart procedure caused Mallard to sit out the 1981 season, and he never caught on with St. Louis.
After playing in eight games as a rookie, Goode played six more seasons as a cornerback for Indianapolis, starting 66 games. He intercepted seven passes. In a 27-7 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Oct. 28, 1990, Goode ran 54 yards with a fumble recovery for his only NFL touchdown. Goode has the most starts among Alabama alumni drafted from No. 221 through No. 257.
Dickson played for the Birmingham Iron of the Alliance of American Football in 2019.
No. 255 pick: Ramzee Robinson, defensive back, Detroit Lions, 2007.
Robinson was Mr. Irrelevant for the 2007 NFL Draft – the final player picked. That didn’t prevent the former S.R. Butler High School standout from playing in 26 NFL games over three seasons.
No. 257 pick: Elliott Speed, center, Washington Redskins, 1951.
Speed had a 20-17-3 record in four seasons as the head coach at Parrish High School in Selma.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.