Lionel Washington | THE BIG RED ZONE

The Big Red Zone continues its series by looking back on each of the 28 St. Louis Cardinals drafts (1960-87). This installment focuses on the 1983 Draft, which was held April 26-27 in New York.

The Cardinals went into the 1983 NFL Draft with some uncertainty about their secondary.

Roger Wehrli had retired after the 1982 season, bringing to an end a 14-year Hall of Fame career. Carl Allen had bolted from the Cardinals and signed with the USFL. And Jeff Griffin was still recovering from a broken arm he suffered during the final game of the ’82 season, a 41-16 playoff loss to Green Bay.

*Leonard Smith was the Cardinals first round pick in the 1983 NFL Draft*

Who was going to start at left cornerback opposite Wayne Smith?

In an effort to answer that question, the Big Red loaded up on defensive backs in the draft, targeting the cornerback position in the first, second, fourth and sixth rounds.

With their first-round pick (17^th overall), the Cardinals took McNeese State’s Leonard Smith, who many scouts had rated as the second-best cornerback in the draft after Tim Lewis (picked 11^th overall by Green Bay) despite having played at Division I-AA McNeese State in the Southland Conference.

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With the NFL celebrating its centennial season in 2019, the league will soon be announcing its top 100 players of all-time. I thought it would be fun to look back and rank the Big Red’s top 100 players who played in St. Louis.

The Cardinals moved from Chicago after the 1959 season and played 28 years in St. Louis before Bill Bidwill moved to the desert in 1988. Several great players played under the arch during this period including four Hall of Famers.

These rankings are only based on the player’s time spent in St. Louis. Consideration was given to the player’s statistics, All-Pro/Pro Bowl selections, team leadership, and impact in the community. It is next to impossible to compare eras, so many of these picks were very difficult.

The Top 100 St. Louis Football Cardinals of All-Time: 60-51

60. JOE BOSTIC (G)

Joe Bostic played guard for nine seasons in St. Louis.

As former St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist Kevin Horrigan once wrote, “Joe Bostic was never a star, never an All-Pro, never a Pro Bowler. He was just a pretty good player, mostly on some pretty bad teams.” Bostic was the Cardinals 3rd round draft pick out of Clemson in 1979 and became a fixture on the Big Red offensive line for nine seasons. The North Carolina native made his first NFL start against the Pittsburgh Steelers playing across L.C. Greenwood. He was named to the NFL All-Rookie team in 1979. Bostic’s best season came in 1984 when he started all 16 games to help lead the Cardinals to a 9-7 record.

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