Top 20 NFL Sooners, No. 11: Jermaine Gresham

TE Jermaine Gresham a matchup nightmare for Cincinnati Bengals, Arizona Cardinals

In the past 20 years, the Oklahoma Sooners have experienced arguably their most productive era ever in the NFL Draft.

From the 2000 to 2019 drafts — the entirety of the Bob Stoops and Lincoln Riley years — OU has had 95 players drafted.

Using today’s 7-round comparison, that’s more than any other two-decade era in school history. In the 1970s and ‘80s, OU had 131 players drafted, but only 88 were selected in the first seven rounds.

In the last 20 years, the Sooners have produced some historically good players. Every day leading up to this year’s NFL Draft (April 23-25), SI Sooners presents the Top 20 NFL Sooners of the last 20 years.

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Jermaine Gresham was an All-American tight end at Oklahoma, made two Pro Bowls with the Cincinnati Bengals and earned a little over $35 million while playing professional football.

But it was his random act of kindness in an airport that made Gresham go viral.

On May 30, 2018, while waiting in line to check in for a flight, Gresham stepped up and paid the unexpected baggage fees of a young woman ahead of him.

Delilah Cassidy, a college student trying to get home from abroad, called Gresham an “angel” and said she told him to “pay it forward” as she boarded.

Anyone who knew Gresham at OU knew he was capable of randomly making someone’s day. Just like anyone who watched him play knew he was capable of wrecking a defensive coordinator’s best-laid plans.

As a junior at OU, the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Gresham was a matchup nightmare, catching 66 passes for 950 yards and scoring 14 touchdowns on his way to first-team All-America honors.

Gresham’s college career was cut short in training camp when he tore knee cartilage in 2009. It was the first of many Sooner injuries that season — Sam Bradford, Trent Williams, Brody Eldridge and others would eventually join Gresham on the sideline.

But Gresham healed up for the NFL Draft, where he joined Bradford, Williams and Gerald McCoy as Sooner first-rounders in 2010 (Gresham went 21st to the Cincinnati Bengals).

In Cincy, Gresham was an immediate star, catching 52 passes for 471 yards as a rookie, 56 for 596 in his second year and 64 for 737 in Year 3. He made the Pro Bowl after those last two seasons, and in five years with the Bengals he caught 280 passes for 2,722 yards and 24 touchdowns.

In 2015, the Arizona Cardinals signed Gresham in free agency, and he played four seasons with the Cardinals, catching 97 passes for 1,030 yards and five TDs.

Football was Gresham’s boarding pass to to the big time, but basketball was his first love. At Ardmore, Gresham averaged 10.1 points and 6.7 rebounds as a 6-foot-4 freshman. He averaged 11.8 points per game as a sophomore and 17.3 as a junior, including 26.5 per game in the state tournament.

But he tore his ACL at the end of his junior year and so declined to play as a senior.

At OU, Gresham became known as a Longhorn killer, an Aggie killer and a Cowboy killer.

As a sophomore, he caught two touchdowns against Texas and four against Texas A&M, and during his junior year he caught two TDs against Cincinnati, Washington, Nebraska, Oklahoma State (including a 73-yard backbreaker) and Florida in the national championship game.

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Our Top 20 list was chosen by five voters: SI Sooners publisher John Hoover, deputy editor Parker Thune, long-time OU fan and amateur Sooner historian Anthony Jumper, OU school of journalism student Caroline Grace, and OU history and stats expert Steven Smith (aka Blinkin Riley).

The criteria was simple: former Sooners who played at OU during the last 20 years and went on to an NFL career. The rest, i.e, their NFL career, was purely subjective. Players received 20 points for a first-place vote, 19 for second, etc., down to 1 point for 20th. A total of 28 players received votes.

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