No. 1 pick in NFL draft a ‘dream’ in many ways

back up, Beddingfield thinks now, they should have moved high enough to take their favored player.

“I would have liked to traded out of that pick and moved back up to select the No. 1 pick in the draft, in my opinion, in Jalen Ramsey,” Beddingfield said. The Jaguars took Ramsey when he slid to fifth.

In 2001, Michael Vick was the clear-cut best prospect available, a quarterback with an unprecedented blend of speed and arm strength. As the draft approached, though, the Chargers' contract negotiations with Vick stalled. Butler hatched an alternative plan: He wanted running back LaDainian Tomlinson and Drew Brees, his second-rated quarterback.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, the Falcons considered a move up from the fifth pick. Ron Hill, Atlanta's vice president of personnel, arranged a meeting between Dan Reeves, the Falcons' coach, and Frank Beamer, Vick's college coach at Virginia Tech. Hill brought Vick to the Falcons' facility to meet with Reeves.

“Dan was the key in us making this trade, as far as the Falcons were concerned,” Hill said. “It was for him to convince himself this was the right move for the franchise and he could coach this kid. He came out of the room and said, ‘I could do this.' My feeling was, [Vick] had so much versatility, he's going to make you a better coach, because he's going to get you thinking more about what you're doing on offense. He can do so many things with his physical traits.”

Two days before the draft, Hill spoke with the Chargers for the first time. He and Butler had a cordial relationship, and talks moved swiftly. Butler asked for the fifth pick and Atlanta's secondand third-round choices, plus wide receiver Tim Dwight.

“I told [Butler], ‘Hey, we're not one guy away here. We can't give away our whole draft for just one guy,'” Hill said. “So I said, ‘Why don't you let me keep the [second-round] pick, and we'll give you that pick next year?' His answer was, ‘Huh, that works for me. That's okay. We'll do that.'”

Vick immediately became one of the most exciting players in the NFL and showed one of the extra benefits of acquiring the first pick: It excites a fan base like few other things can. “He filled that stadium pretty quick,” Hill said. “At that time . . . we were having a hard time filling the stadium, even though we'd had some success with [Chris] Chandler and [going to] the Super Bowl. This kid solved a lot of problems for us.”

The Chargers, just as they intended, took Tomlinson fifth and used their own secondround pick to take Brees. They had read the board perfectly.