Ranking the 5 most bizarre NFL Draft day rumors 

#3 - Drug rumours cause Dan Marino to slide in NFL Draft

Dan Marino should have been taken immediately after John Elway

Dan Marino was the second most talented quarterback in the 1983 NFL Draft, behind only John Elway.

There was no way that the future Hall of Famer should have fallen as far as he did, yet rumors about his leisure activities cost him dearly.

1983 was a unique year for the NFL Draft, with television coverage of the event beginning to gain some popularity. Fans now talked about the draft with enthusiasm. No longer was it a stuffy affair held with executives in a cigar-smoke-filled function room. It was a show.

Rumors went around the league that Marino had a problem with marijuana use, and this speculation was taken on by national media outlets.

Marvin Demoff was Marino’s agent, and he even became aware of how the stories were spooking teams and leaving them cold on his client.

It’s unclear where the rumor originated from, but it grew in stature as the draft drew closer, with Demoff left frustrated. The rumor grew such legs that his college actually drug tested the player before his final year ended.

Marino fell all the way to the 27th pick in that draft, almost certainly down to rumors of his drug use at parties. Still, it wouldn’t be an issue as he turned out to be a spectacular pick by the Dolphins.

To this day, there are those who believe the rumors were a conspiracy started by the Dolphins to ensure they could get Marino late in the first-round. Nobody has ever been able to substantiate such claims.

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#2 - Was it Laremy Tunsil’s stepfather?

Did a family rivalry spark Tunsil's slide?

There’s no need to go into the intricacies of the well-known social media post which cost Laremy Tunsil his chances of being selected #1 overall in the NFL Draft.

However, the rumor that was present throughout the whole fiasco was perhaps more interesting than the content of the post itself.

The identity of the person who posted the picture and text messages on Laremy Tunsil’s own twitter account has never been revealed. Although, at the time, all fingers were pointed towards his stepfather.

As viewers watched the worst moment of an athlete’s life play out on their television screens, social media users dug for answers.

It quickly became apparent that Tunsil’s relationship with his stepfather wasn’t good. Just days before the 2016 Draft, Lindsey Miller, the stepfather, launched a lawsuit against Tunsil.

The suit alleged that Tunsil had attacked Miller and that the offensive tackle had since defamed Miller’s character.

Once social media got hold of this information, it was all but decided that this entire episode was some form of orchestrated retaliation on the part of Miller, to limit Tunsil’s earnings.

While there has never been any proof of the links, it remains one of the biggest rumors to ever hit NFL Draft day.

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#1 - Don’t talk about Derrius Guice’s mother

Few could understand Guice's ability to self-sabotage ahead of the NFL Draft

If ever there was a case where rumors overtook a prospect, then it was Derrius Guice’s painful path to second-round selection in 2018.

Having excelled with LSU in college, Guice was projected to be a first-round selection. He became the first player in SEC history to have three games of 250 or more rushing yards, but his draft stock was about to fall.

What is bizarre about this story is the fact that Guice started the rumors himself. It’s unclear whether he was trying to build hype for his own selection, but it backfired.

At the NFL combine, Guice interviewed with a number of franchises. Yet, in an interview with Sirius XM, the player accused teams of asking him inappropriate questions.

“Some people are really trying to get in your head and test your reaction… I got to one room and a team will ask me if I like men, whilst another team will tell me ‘Hey, I heard your mom sells herself, how do you feel about that?’”

A lengthy investigation into these interviews was conducted by the NFL, but there was no evidence to support Guice’s claims. All this served to do was make teams lose trust in Guice, especially with him admitting to one of them that he made the story up.

Character concerns saw teams take the running back off their draft boards, and he slid into the second-round where he was eventually taken by Washington.

This is a truly bizarre story, and the damage caused to Guice’s draft stock was entirely self-inflicted as he started the rumor mill all on his own.