Merv Pregulman

The annual NFL Draft is coming up, so we wondered who was the highest Jew ever drafted... and were hit with an anticlimactic answer: Hall of Famer Sid Luckman, taken #2 by the Bears in 1939. We already profiled him all the way back in 2008! So... who is the second highest Jew ever drafted?

For that, we need to go to 1944, when the Green Bay Packers took offensive lineman Merv Pregulman 7th overall out of the University of Michigan. The two-time all-American did not enter the NFL immediately. Instead, he became a gunner in the navy, fighting bravely and miraculously surviving a kamikaze attack in the Pacific.

When World War II ended, Pregulman returned to football, playing one year for the Packers, two for the Lions, and one for the long-departed New York Bulldogs. The Eagles wanted him to play for them in 1950, but by then, Pregulman decided that the furniture business was more lucrative. So that was it for Merv and the NFL.

The third highest Jew ever drafted? Josh Rosen, 10th in 2018.

They can't all be Hall of Famers...