Close call---Cutis Enis in 1998

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Grant Wistrom recalls 1998 NFL Draft
By Jim Henry jhenry@joplinglobe.com Apr 22, 2020
2 min to read


Grant Wistrom wasn't nervous as the NFL Draft began 22 years ago.

“Just excitement,” he said Wednesday morning. “For me as a kid, it never was a dream to play in the NFL. I just always loved playing football. It never really started to become a reality until probably my junior year of college. That was the first time I really thought about it.

“I love the game of football. I always did. Probably more than anything, the excitement of getting to extend the ability to do something that I love. God put me on this earth to play football. I knew it from a young, young age. It’s pretty cool to be able to identify something you’re really passionate about early and to pour all into it.”

Wistrom, a defensive end who prepped at Webb City and was a two-time Big 12 Conference Defensive Player of the Year at Nebraska, was selected No. 6 overall by the St. Louis Rams in the 1998 draft.

“I knew they were interested in me,” Wistrom said. “As the story goes, if the Bears had not chosen Curtis Enis (running back from Penn State) with the fifth pick, then the Rams were probably going to pick Curtis Enis. The Bears took Curtis Enis, so I was there for the Rams.

“Actually the Dallas Cowboys called me the night before, and they had a plane waiting in Joplin. They asked me to call the Rams and tell them not to draft me because they heard the Rams were going to take me with the sixth pick and they wanted to take me with the eighth pick. At the time I would have given anything to go to Dallas over St. Louis with where they were at and with their history … the losingest team in the last decade. But that’s not who I am. It’s not what I want to be. So I said ‘No sir, I can’t do that.’

"Thank God that I didn’t because I wouldn’t have a Super Bowl ring and I wouldn’t have met my wife and I wouldn’t have my children. Life would have been completely different.”

The Rams quickly turned things around, and they won Super Bowl 34 in Wistrom's second year, beating the Tennessee Titans 23-16 on Mike Jones' tackle at the 1-yard line on the game's final play.

Earlier Wistrom won state championships in his junior and senior seasons at Webb City and three national titles with the Cornhuskers. Add the Super Bowl victory, and Wistrom had six championships in an eight-year span.

“It was a heck of a run,” Wistrom said. “At one point I was 50-0. Between the third game of my junior year of high school up until the second game of my junior year of college, I didn’t lose a football game. Yeah, pretty awesome.

"I was so fortunate. People ask about the coaches I’ve been around. At every level of the game I have been so blessed to be around phenomenal coaches. And that’s not always the case. You get a few lemons along the way, but man, every stop I made, it got to be incredible organizations with incredible coaches and creating great traditions."

Two years later in 2002, the Rams made it back to the Super Bowl but lost to New England 20-17 as the world was introduced to Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and the start of his late-game heroics.

"We won it in my second year, lost it in my fourth year and we probably should have played in it again my sixth year but we ended up losing to the Panthers in overtime (29-23 in two overtimes)," Wistrom said. "Then I went to Seattle for three years and got to play in one more (a 21-10 loss to the Steelers in Super Bowl 40)."

Wistrom made 409 tackles in his nine-year career, including 53 quarterback sacks and 74 tackles for loss. He recovered eight fumbles, forced seven and made five interceptions, including two in the '99 season and both were returned for touchdowns of 91 and 40 yards.

Today Wistrom, who turns 44 this summer, lives in Springfield, and he and his wife Melissa recently received a medical marijuana license in Missouri.

"We can manufacture it and sell it, but we missed out on the cultivation license," Wistrom said. "So we're going full steam ahead with that."

NFL Draft on TV

KODE, ESPN and NFL Network will show the NFL draft starting at 7 p.m. today (Round 1), 6 p.m Friday (Rounds 2-3) and 11 a.m. Saturday (Rounds 4-7).