1998 NFL draft

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The 1998 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 18–19, 1998, at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season. Before the draft, there was much debate in the media on if the Indianapolis Colts would select quarterbacks Peyton Manning from the University of Tennessee's Volunteers or Ryan Leaf from the Washington State University's Cougars with the first overall pick. Both were considered excellent prospects and future franchise quarterbacks: Leaf was considered to have more upside and a stronger throwing arm, whereas Manning was considered a polished prospect who was NFL ready and more mature. On the day of the draft, the Colts selected Manning due to Leaf's disdain for Indianapolis and many other factors, with Leaf being selected second overall by the San Diego Chargers, who traded a king's ransom to the Arizona Cardinals for the right to draft whoever the Colts didn't select with the first overall selection to replace the recently-retired Stan Humphries as their franchise quarterback, which became Leaf, while the Cardinals would take the Chargers' original third overall pick to select the Florida State Seminoles defensive end Andre Wadsworth. Manning went on to be a five-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) award winner (the most of any player in NFL history), a two-time Super Bowl champion (in 2006 with the Colts and in 2015 with the Denver Broncos), and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2021, while Leaf was out of the NFL by 2002 after having earned a 4–17 record over 21 games as a starting...