The 2025 NFL Draft starts on April 24 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, with the 32 first-round picks. AL.com is counting down to the event by highlighting the best choice – overall, from the SEC and of players from Alabama high schools and colleges — made with each of the first 32 picks in the 89 NFL drafts.
Best No. 12 pick: Miami (Fla.) defensive tackle Warren Sapp by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1995
Sapp made the Pro Bowl annually from 1997 through 2003 and earned first-team All-Pro recognition every season from 1999 through 2002.
In 1999, Sapp won The Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year Award, and in 2002, Sapp helped Tampa Bay win the Super Bowl.
Sapp joined the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Class of 2013 in his first year of eligibility.
Two other No. 12 picks are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame – cornerback Herb Adderley from the 1961 draft and quarterback Joe Namath from the 1965 draft.
The Denver Broncos chose Oregon quarterback Bo Nix at No. 12 in last year’s draft.
Best No. 12 pick from the SEC: Alabama quarterback Joe Namath by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965
There might have been “Gateway Arch Joe” if Alabama quarterback Joe Namath had signed with the NFL team that drafted him in 1965.
Instead, Namath chose to sign the New York Jets’ offer of the most lucrative contract to that point in pro football history after being the No. 1 pick in the 1965 AFL Draft and became “Broadway Joe.”
The Cardinals had used the 12th choice in the NFL Draft on Namath, who was the third SEC player chosen in 1965. The New York Giants took Auburn running back Tucker Frederickson at No. 1, and the Chicago Bears selected Tennessee defensive lineman Steve DeLong at No. 6.
So as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Namath is the best SEC player chosen in an NFL Draft at No. 12, but he probably wasn’t the best No. 12 draft pick, at least from the Cardinals’ perspective.
The most recent of the 16 SEC players chosen at No. 12 in the NFL Draft is Alabama running back Jahmyr Gibbs, picked by the Detroit Lions in 2023.
Best No. 12 pick with Alabama football roots: Alabama quarterback Joe Namath by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1965
By signing a three-year, $427,000 contract with the New York Jets of the AFL instead of joining St. Louis, Namath started a career that made him the most important player in the upstart league’s history on the way to merger with the NFL. The contract was the richest in pro football history at the time and put a feather in the cap of the NFL’s rival league, which had begun play in 1960.
Namath turned out to be not only an all-star player for the Jets – the 1965 AFL Rookie of the Year and the 1968 AFL Player of the Year, among other accolades – but also a pivotal figure in pro-football history.
Namath guaranteed the Jets would upend the NFL champion Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III after the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders had been routinely turned aside by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers in the first two world-championship games. Namath was right, and he received the MVP Award for New York’s 16-7 victory on Jan. 12, 1969, in an upset that added legitimacy to the coming merger.
The Dallas Cowboys hold the No. 12 pick in the NFL Draft on April 24.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.