The Falcons select...The Duke?
In 1972, NFL Films had its cameras in the Atlanta Falcons' draft room. When it was time for Atlanta to make its 17th-round pick, head coach Norm Van Brocklin jumped out of his seat and shouted, "Do we want the roughest, toughest S.O.B. in the draft?"
Everyone in the room joined in saying, "Hell, yes!"
Van Brocklin grabbed the phone and dialed the league office in New York.
"Atlanta picks John Wayne of Fort Apache State," he said.
NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle quickly recognized the prank call and overruled the Falcons' creative choice.
"The Duke," who played at USC in the 1920s, was a little past his prime.
"We got a lecture from the powers that be that the next time it happens, a team would not get its pick back," said former Packers general manager Ron Wolf, who was in the Raiders' player personnel department at the time. "Late in the night things would just happen."
For the record, Wayne played a famous college football coach in the 1953 film "Trouble Along the Way," which tanked at the box office.
