Tampa Bay ultimately lost Jackson's rights for nothing, and the Los Angeles Raiders drafted him with a seventh round pick the following year. At that juncture, Bucs owner Hugh Culverhouse vowed to never take a chance on another baseball player.

That was a problem for Lynch, who was in the middle of a minor league baseball career with the Florida Marlins organization. Uncertainty clouded the draft stock of the former Stanford safety.

"There was a lot of conjecture that I wouldn't leave a baseball career," Lynch said. "(Teams believed) that I was just trying to get more money out of the Florida Marlins."

The speculation was enough to drop Lynch out of the first two rounds. The disappointment started on Day 1, when the Green Bay Packers nearly selected Lynch with the 29th overall pick.

They, too, were skeptical of Lynch's ambitions as a professional football player.

"Are you going to give up baseball?" a Packers executive asked him at the time.

"I said, 'Absolutely,'" Lynch recalled. "'If you draft me, I'm playing football and committing to the Green Bay Packers.'"

But Green Bay passed on Lynch and went with Alabama safety George Teague instead.

By the time the third round rolled around, 49ers legend and then-Stanford head coach Bill Walsh got involved. He placed a phone call to Bucs head coach Sam Wyche before Tampa Bay went on the clock at pick No. 82.