No safety has been selected with the first overall pick in any pro football draft. The closest any team has come to doing it was when the Cleveland Browns took UCLA’s Eric Turner with the second overall pick in the 1991 draft. Turner had a nice career, with 30 interceptions, two Pro Bowls and one First-Team All-Pro nod over nine seasons, but he’s not the first name that comes to mind when it comes to the best safeties we’ve ever seen.
Ronnie Lott was selected with the eighth pick in the 1981 draft by the San Francisco 49ers, and Bill Walsh took the USC star because another UCLA alum — Kenny Easley — had been picked by the Seattle Seahawks fourth overall. Both men eventually made the Hall of Fame.
Regarding players in the modern era, Ed Reed was taken by the Baltimore Ravens with the 24th pick in the 2002 draft, and he wasn’t even the first defensive back selected — that was Phillip Bucannon, taken by the Oakland Raiders 17th overall. The Washington Redskins took Sean Taylor with the fifth overall pick in 2004. The Pittsburgh Steelers selected Troy Polamalu with the 16th overall pick a year earlier, and the Seahawks took Texas’ Earl Thomas — who Pete Carroll has said reminded him of Polamalu — with the 14th overall pick in 2010.
