The 2024 NFL Draft is less than a week away and while Auburn won’t have any players taken in the first round this year, with the talent Hugh Freeze has already brought to The Plains, Auburn could once again become a can’t-miss stop on the NFL scouting trail.
Auburn has not produced a first-round pick since Derrick Brown and Noah Igbinoghene in 2020. In total 32 Tigers have been selected in the first round of the NFL Draft and four have gone No. 1 overall. Through you don’t have to be a top pick to be one of the best picks in program history.
For NFL teams it’s all about value and the 10 players on this list provided the most for where they were taken in the draft. Auburn has given the NFL late-round sleepers, mid-round stars, and first-round studs who delivered on their pedigree. Let’s start in Round 2 with Frank Sanders.
No Auburn football player has racked up more NFL receiving yards than Sanders, a second-round pick of the Cardinals in 1995. As a rookie, he burst onto the scene with 52 grabs for 883 yards while Arizona went 4-12 with Dave Krieg at quarterback.
He posted another 800-yard season in Year 2, followed by back-to-back years with over 1,000 yards receiving. The 6-foot-2 215-pound receiver got a second contract from the Cardinals and stayed in Arizona for the first eight of his nine-year career.
Sanders finished with 6,749 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns.