1983 NFL draft

The 1983 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 26–27, 1983, at the New York Sheraton Hotel in New York City, New York. No teams elected to claim any players in the supplemental draft that year. The draft is frequently referred to as the quarterback class of 1983, because six quarterbacks were taken in the first round—John Elway, Todd Blackledge, Jim Kelly, Tony Eason, Ken O'Brien and Dan Marino—tied with the 2024 draft for the highest number taken. Of these quarterbacks, Elway, Kelly, Eason, and Marino played in the Super Bowl, Elway, Kelly, O'Brien, and Marino were selected to play in the Pro Bowl, and Elway, Kelly, and Marino have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. All six quarterbacks were drafted by American Football Conference (AFC) teams, with every member of the five-team AFC East (the Baltimore Colts, Miami Dolphins, Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, and New England Patriots) selecting a quarterback. In eleven of the sixteen years following this draft, the AFC was represented in the Super Bowl by a team led by one of these quarterbacks: five with the Denver Broncos and Elway, four with the Bills and Kelly, one with the Dolphins and Marino, and one with the Patriots and Eason. They met with little success in the Super Bowl, however, compiling a 2–9 record among them, with an 0–9 record for their first 14 years in the league. The only two wins were by Elway in XXXII and XXXIII during his final two seasons in 1997 and 1998. Three of the most lopsided Super Bowl losses in history also came at the hands of quarterbacks from the Class...