Pete Rozelle, professional football commissioner, works at blackboard at hotel in New York City on March 14, 1967 as he conducts the combined National Football League (NFL) ? American Football league (AFL) football player draft. (AP Photo/Jacob Harris)
The 1967 NFL Draft changed the face of league
A half-century ago the NFL Draft was so simple NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle stood at a chalkboard in a New York hotel ballroom. He scrawled names in chalk as they were called out. The anticipation hovering over the draft was not about who would go where. It was relief -- to the owners, not the players -- that athletes were taken by only one team. The 1967 draft was the first since the NFL-AFL merger that ended bidding…