At the 1979 NFL Draft, the Atlanta Falcons used the 79th pick on Auburn running back William Andrews.
Twenty-two years later, the Cincinnati Bengals used the 100th pick in the NFL Draft on Auburn running back Rudi Johnson.
Twenty-two years after that, the Jacksonville Jaguars used the 88th pick in the 88th NFL Draft on Auburn running back Tank Bigsby. He has something to live up to.
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The three picks would fall in the draft’s third round this year, which will be held on April 26 in Detroit.
In his first five seasons with the Falcons, Andrews ran for 5,772 yards and 29 touchdowns, caught 11 TD passes and produced 8,384 yards from scrimmage before a knee injury wrecked his career.
Johnson produced 5,178 rushing yards and 45 rushing touchdowns in a four-season span with the Bengals.
Bigsby played a backup role as a rookie and had 132 rushing yards. Two seasons into his career, Johnson had only 67.
NFL teams have selected 31 players with the 65th through 100th picks in a draft, the picks that will make up the third round this year:
No. 65 pick: Ben Tamburello, guard, Philadelphia Eagles, 1987.
A unanimous All-American at center for Auburn in 1986, Tamburello played in 50 games, with 11 starts, in four seasons for Philadelphia. He was limited to two games in his rookie season when he suffered a broken wrist in a preseason contest.
No. 66 pick: Tracy Rocker, defensive tackle, Washington Redskins, 1989.
In 1988, Rocker’s second season as a consensus All-American, he won the Outland Trophy and the Lombardi Award while being selected as the SEC Player of the Year. After earning a place on the Pro Football Writers of America’s All-Rookie team in 1989, Rocker played in only eight more NFL games.
No. 67 picks: Bill Cody, linebacker, Detroit Lions, 1966; Dan Nugent, guard, Los Angeles Rams, 1975.
After playing in one game as a rookie because of knee injury, “Wild Bill” Cody was selected by the New Orleans Saints with the sixth pick in their expansion draft, making him a member of the Crescent City’s inaugural team in 1967.
Washington traded two draft picks to obtain Nugent from Los Angeles, and he became a starter at right guard in his third NFL season. But he suffered a back injury before the 1979 season and played only one more season, getting one start in 1980.
No. 68 pick: Bo Russell, tackle, Washington Redskins, 1939.
In his two NFL seasons, Russell made 2-of-7 field-goal attempts and 26-of-28 extra-point kicks and scored one touchdown on a blocked-punt return. The former Woodlawn High School standout’s touchdown came in a 41-13 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers on Oct. 8, 1939, and he made the extra point after the TD.
No. 72 pick: Donnie Humphrey, nose tackle, Green Bay Packers, 1984.
A second-team All-American selection by UPI in 1983, Humphrey played in every game during his three seasons with Green Bay. His daughter Tasha Humphrey played two seasons in the WNBA.
No. 73 pick: Mike Fuller, defensive back, San Diego Chargers, 1975.
Fuller has the most NFL punt-return yards of any Auburn alumnus. In eight seasons, Fuller returned 252 punts for 2,660 yards and two touchdowns for an average of 10.6 yards per return.
No. 75 picks: Rob Selby, guard, Philadelphia Eagles, 1991; Tre Mason, running back, St. Louis Rams, 2014.
Selby made nine of his 18 NFL starts in 1997, his final NFL season.
After running for an Auburn single-season record of 1,816 yards in 2013, Mason had 765 yards for the Rams in 2014 to earn a spot on the Pro Football Writers of America’s All-Rookie team. But he was supplanted by first-round draft pick Todd Gurley the next year, when his output dropped to 207 rushing yards in his final NFL season.
No. 76 picks: Joel Eaves, end, Washington Redskins, 1937; Shon Coleman, tackle, Cleveland Browns, 2016.
Eaves was selected 35 picks after Walter Gilbert in the 1937 NFL Draft, making him the second Auburn player chosen in the event’s history. As with Gilbert, Eaves didn’t pursue pro football. Eaves played for Ralph “Shug” Jordan at Auburn -- but not football. Eaves was a standout guard when Jordan coached the Tigers’ basketball team. Eaves returned to Auburn in 1949 to coach Auburn’s basketball team. In 14 seasons, he compiled a 213-100 record and guided the Tigers to their first SEC basketball title in 1960. He’s the Eaves in Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum, the former home of the Tigers’ basketball teams. Eaves left Auburn to become Georgia’s athletic director and hired Auburn assistant Vince Dooley as the Bulldogs’ football coach.
Coleman overcame cancer to play at Auburn. In the NFL, he started every game for Cleveland in 2017. In 2018, he spent the season with the San Francisco 49ers without playing. In 2019, a fractured fibula and dislocated ankle suffered in a preseason game sideline him for the entire campaign. In 2020, he opted out under the NFL’s coronavirus-pandemic plan. In 2021, Coleman was back on injured reserve because of a triceps injury. In 2022, the Chicago Bears released Coleman at the end of the preseason.
No. 77 pick: Pat Sims, defensive tackle, Cincinnati Bengals, 2008.
Sims played in 130 games in 10 seasons, eight spent with Cincinnati.
No. 78 pick: Danny Fulford, end, Cleveland Browns, 1966.
No. 79 pick: William Andrews, running back, Atlanta Falcons, 1979.
The Falcons got a third-round find with Andrews, who had run for 1,347 yards at Auburn while sharing carries with future NFL 1,000-yard rushers Joe Cribbs and James Brooks, who were drafted at No. 29 in 1980 and No. 24 in 1981, respectively. Andrews didn’t have that problem in the pros. He ran for at least 1,000 yards in four of his first five NFL seasons (and it might have been five-for-five if not for a strike in 1982). The four-time Pro Bowler led the NFL in yards from scrimmage with 2,036 in 1981, then had 2,176 in 1983, the third-most in a single season in NFL history at that time. But in a preseason game in 1984, Andrews suffered a knee injury that kept him off the field for two years. He came back for 15 games in 1986, playing running back and tight end, but had only 52 more carries for 214 yards. Andrews ran for 5,986 yards and 30 touchdowns on 1,315 carries and caught 277 passes for 2,647 yards and 11 touchdowns.
No. 82 picks: Karsten Bailey, wide receiver, Seattle Seahawks, 1999; Heath Evans, fullback, Seattle Seahawks, 2001.
In four NFL seasons, Bailey caught nine passes for 88 yards and one touchdown.
Evans’ 10 NFL seasons included 579 rushing yards, 57 receptions and eight touchdowns. He was a member of the 2007 New England Patriots team that won its first 18 games before losing to the New York Giants in the Super Bowl.
No. 83 picks: Jim Sivell, guard, Brooklyn Dodgers, 1938; John McGeever, defensive back, Philadelphia Eagles, 1962; Robert Goff, defensive end, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1988; James Bostic, running back, Los Angeles Rams, 1994.
Sivell was not the first Auburn alumnus to play in the NFL, but he was the first former Tigers’ player to be drafted who did. In 1941 while playing for Brooklyn, Sivell was selected for the third NFL All-Star Game.
McGeever played for the Denver Broncos, who had picked him at No. 50 in the 1962 AFL Draft, instead of Philadelphia. In five AFL seasons, he intercepted 11 passes.
During a 122-game career, Goff scored two touchdowns – both on fumble recoveries in the 1992 season with the New Orleans Saints. He had a 19-yard fumble-recovery return for a touchdown in a 28-6 victory over the Chicago Bears on Sept. 13 and a 28-yard fumble-recovery return for a touchdown in a 24-13 victory over the Miami Dolphins on Nov. 29.
Bostic had five rushing attempts and five receptions in two seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, making his NFL debut four years after he was drafted. In 2001, Bostic led the XFL in rushing attempts with 153 carries for 536 yards and two touchdowns for the Birmingham Thunderbolts.
No. 84 picks: Curtis Kuykendall, back, Washington Redskins, 1945; Bill Harris, center, Chicago Bears, 1946.
Kuykendall holds the Auburn single-game rushing record with 307 yards in a 38-19 victory over Miami (Fla.) on Nov. 24, 1944, but he never played in the NFL.
Neither did Harris.
No. 85 pick: Jack Locklear, center, Cleveland Browns, 1955.
A member of coach Ralph “Shug” Jordan’s first team at Auburn, Locklear didn’t play in the NFL. But he did invent and serve the Bananza Burger as a restaurateur in Fort Payne.
No. 87 picks: Tex Warrington, guard, Boston Yanks, 1944; Sammie Coates, wide receiver, Pittsburgh Steelers, 2015.
The Associated Press’ All-American center in 1944 (after being drafted by the Boston Yanks on April 19, 1944), Warrington’s pro career came in the All-American Football Conference, where he played three seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Of Coates’ 29 receptions in his four NFL seasons, 19 came in the first five games of the 2016 season. He had 421 receiving yards and his average of 22.2 yards per catch led the NFL at that point in the season, but injuries wrecked the rest of his campaign.
No. 88 pick: Corey Lemonier, defensive end, San Francisco 49ers, 2013; Tank Bigsby, running back, Jacksonville Jaguars.
Lemonier played for three teams in 2016, his final NFL season, and he got his only NFL sacks that year – both with the Cleveland Browns as he took down Miami Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill and New York Giants QB Eli Manning.
Backing up Travis Etienne as a rookie, Bigsby had 132 yards and two touchdowns on 50 rushing attempts and a 6-yard reception.
No. 90 picks: Hal Herring, linebacker, Chicago Cardinals, 1949; Mickey Sutton, defensive back, Chicago Bears, 1965.
Herring’s four-season career started with the Buffalo Bills of the All-American Football Conference instead of Chicago. The next season, he was in the NFL and intercepted a pass in the Cleveland Browns’ 30-28 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the league championship game.
Sutton also bypassed the NFL, but unlike Herring, didn’t get to the league later. Sutton played one season for the AFL’s Houston Oilers.
No. 91 pick: Anthony Schwartz, wide receiver, Browns, 2021.
Schwartz has 14 receptions for 186 yards and one touchdown, 96 rushing yards and one touchdown on 10 carries and a 21.5-yard average on 15 kickoff returns in 25 games with Cleveland.
No. 92 pick: Jerraud Powers, defensive back, Indianapolis Colts, 2009.
Powers made 88 starts in eight NFL seasons. He played for Indianapolis in Super Bowl XLIV, which the Colts lost 31-17 to the New Orleans Saints.
No. 93 picks: Stacy Searels, tackle, San Diego Chargers, 1988; Montravius Adams, defensive tackle, Green Bay Packers, 2017.
Searels was the offensive-line coach for Georgia’s CFP national championship team in 2022.
Adams has made 21 of his 25 NFL starts since joining the Pittsburgh Steelers with five games remaining in the 2021 season.
No. 94 pick: Jamel Dean, cornerback, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 2019.
Dean capped his second NFL season by starting in the secondary in Super Bowl LV as Tampa Bay defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 to win the 2020 NFL championship. He signed a four-year, $52 million contract extension with the Buccaneers in 2023.
No. 95 pick: Larry Willingham, defensive back, St. Louis Cardinals, 1971.
After two seasons with St. Louis, Willingham missed the 1973 campaign because of an injury. When he returned in 1974, it was with the WFL’s Birmingham Americans.
No. 97 pick: Reggie Torbor, linebacker, New York Giants, 2004.
Torbor played in 104 regular-season games in seven seasons. He made 28 starts in those games, but in New York’s march to the 2007 NFL championship, Torbor started all four playoff contests, including the Giants’ 17-14 victory over the previously undefeated New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
No. 98 pick: Ron Stallworth, defensive end, New York Jets, 1989.
After playing in every game and making 25 starts in his two seasons with the Jets, Stallworth was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs in 1991 and did not play again.
No. 100 picks: Rudi Johnson, running back, Cincinnati Bengals, 2001; Angelo Blackson, defensive tackle, Tennessee Titans, 2015.
After running for 67 yards in his first two seasons in Cincinnati, Johnson produced 5,178 yards and 45 touchdowns in the next four, when he carried the football 1,254 times. He went to the Pro Bowl in 2004.
Blackson has played in 128 NFL regular-season games, including 11 for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2023.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.