The Luke Fickell era has officially hit rock bottom, and the NFL Draft just exposed it for the whole world to see. For the first time since Jimmy Carter was president and after 47 straight NFL Drafts, Wisconsin has zero players picked. Not a single player.
To make matters worse, a good handful of players who left Wisconsin during the Fickell era were drafted, but none who stayed or even came. That's a shame on the program and a shame on Fickell. There was really only one player that many thought would be drafted, and yet even Mason Reiger wasn't drafted.
No Badgers selected in the 2026 NFL Draft. No absolute locks in the 2027, either. Story tomorrow on that topic at @badger247
— Jon McNamara (@McNamara_247) April 25, 2026
The Wisconsin Badgers didn't have a player selected in the NFL Draft since 1978
Related: Wisconsin interim AD publicly backs Luke Fickell ahead of pivotal 2026 season
The 2025 NFL Draft felt like rock bottom, with the best players the Wisconsin Badgers had all drafted in the seventh round. Three players were selected in the late 200s. It was a drop from the two players the year before that went in the fourth round, and a far cry from the days when first-rounders were the norm.
This year became the new rock bottom. The program hasn't been this low since the 5-6 season of the John Jardine era. Which half of Badger fans don't even remember.
The hard part is that there aren't really any players you can forecast to be drafted in the 2027 NFL Draft out of Wisconsin. This season could surprise, but it's not looking great for next year either. That's bad, terrible, no good from Fickell and his team. He's simply not developing NFL talent, and the NFL talent he does get all end up leaving for better development pipelines.
You have to wonder how a guy like Vinny Anthony II feels after spending all of his years of eligibility believing he had NFL talent, only to watch a player like Skyler Bell leave Fickell and get rewarded with an NFL Draft pick. The development program and the ability to get guys into the NFL have been a disaster, and it's not simply because the results on the field are bad; it's truly that NFL talent isn't coming out of Madison right now.
The only players that have a shot will all be UDFA and will really have their backs against the wall. This is rock bottom, and the NFL Draft has exposed it. It's time that Fickell rights the ship; he's made good progress this offseason with the recruiting, but there's a long way to go.
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