It’s no secret that Utah has been a hotbed for NFL talent in recent years, but it’s not as widely known that the state has seemingly always held football factory status.

Players from BYU, Utah and Utah State have been making an impact on the league for nearly a century.

Here are the best products from Beehive State schools to suit up for each NFL franchise.

Washington Commanders: Chris Cooley (Utah State)

Years with team: 2004-12.

Statistics with team: 117 games, 429 receptions, 4,711 yards and 33 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 2x Pro Bowler, franchise leader in career tight end receiving yards and named to the team’s “90 Greatest” list.

A fan favorite, do-it-all tight end who emerged as one of the best players at his position in the mid-2000s.

Dallas Cowboys: Cornell Green (Utah State)

Years with team: 1962-74.

Statistics with team: 182 games, 34 interceptions, seven forced fumbles and four defensive touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 5x Pro Bowler, 2x First Team All-Pro, 2x Second Team All-Pro and Super Bowl VI champion.

A former Aggies basketball talent who never played college football, Green became a gridiron star in Dallas as one of the franchise’s first true impact players.

New York Giants: Bart Oates (BYU)

Years with team: 1985-93.

Statistics with team: 140 games, 136 starts and three fumble recoveries.

Accolades with team: 2x Pro Bowler and 2x Super Bowl champion.

A strong leader on the offensive line who seemingly won wherever he went.

Philadelphia Eagles: Chad Lewis (BYU)

Years with team: 1997-98, 1999-2005.

Statistics with team: 110 games, 228 receptions, 2,349 yards and 23 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 3x Pro Bowler and 2000 Second Team All-Pro.

One of Andy Reid’s favorite offensive weapons during Philadelphia’s early 2000s run of NFC East dominance.

Carolina Panthers: Steve Smith Sr. (Utah)

Years with team: 2001-13.

Statistics with team: 182 games, 836 receptions, 12,197 yards and 75 total touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 5x Pro Bowler, 2x First Team All-Pro, 2008 Second Team All-Pro, 2005 Comeback Player of the Year, all-time franchise receiving leader and member of the Panthers Hall of Honor.

Arguably the greatest player in Carolina Panthers history and one of the most feared receivers and return specialists of his generation.

Atlanta Falcons: Jamal Anderson (Utah)

Years with team: 1994-2001.

Statistics with team: 88 games, 6,981 scrimmage yards and 41 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 1998 Pro Bowler and First Team All-Pro, franchise single season rushing leader.

The dynamic Anderson’s 1998 campaign is still considered one of the best ever for a running back.

New Orleans Saints: Taysom Hill (BYU)

Years with team: 2017-present.

Statistics with team: 97 games, 7-2 starting record, 2,348 passing yards, 11 touchdowns, 2,915 scrimmage yards and 38 scrimmage touchdowns.

Nicknamed the “Swiss Army Knife,” Hill has proven a valuable contributor as a quarterback, running back, tight end and special teamer during his unique career in the Big Easy.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Donald Penn (Utah State)

Years with team: 2007-13.

Statistics with team: 112 games, 108 starts, four fumble recoveries and two touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 2010 Pro Bowler.

The definition of dependable, Penn started all but four games in his seven seasons with Tampa.

Detroit Lions: Ziggy Ansah (BYU)

Years with team: 2013-18.

Statistics with team: 80 games, 48 sacks and 10 forced fumbles.

Accolades with team: 2015 Pro Bowler and Second Team All-Pro.

A freakish athletic specimen hindered by injuries but still able to notch the record for most Thanksgiving Day sacks in NFL history.

Green Bay Packers: Lionel Aldridge (Utah State)

Years with team: 1963-71.

Statistics with team: 123 games, 62 sacks and 16 fumble recoveries.

Accolades with team: 2x Super Bowl champion, 1965 NFL champion and member of the Packers Hall of Fame.

A standout defensive force for one of the league’s most decorated dynasties.

Chicago Bears: Jim McMahon (BYU)

Years with team: 1982-88.

Statistics with team: 46-15 starting record, 11,203 passing yards, 67 touchdowns, 1,284 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 1985 Pro Bowler, Super Bowl XX champion and member of the 100 Greatest Bears.

The “punky QB” for what many consider to be the greatest team in NFL history, McMahon’s off-the-field antics are what truly cemented him as an icon in his era.

Minnesota Vikings: Jim Hough (Utah State)

Years with team: 1978-86.

Statistics with team: 111 games, 76 starts and two fumble recoveries.

A steady contributor at both the left guard and center positions for nearly a decade in Minnesota.

San Francisco 49ers: Steve Young (BYU)

Years with team: 1987-99.

Statistics with team: 91-33 starting record, 29,907 passing yards, 221 touchdowns, 3,581 rushing yards and 37 rushing touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 2x MVP, 7x Pro Bowler, 3x First Team All-Pro, 3x Second Team All-Pro, 3x Super Bowl champion, Super Bowl XXIX MVP, and member of both the 49ers and Pro Football Halls of Fame.

Young was given the daunting task of succeeding Joe Montana in San Francisco and responded with a Hall of Fame career as one of the most exciting and beloved superstars of his era.

Arizona Cardinals: Larry Wilson (Utah)

Years with team: 1960-72.

Statistics with team: 169 games, 52 interceptions, 14 fumble recoveries and eight total touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 1966 Defensive Player of the Year, 8x Pro Bowler, 5x First Team All-Pro, franchise interceptions leader, Cardinals Ring of Honor inductee and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Wilson spent over a decade wreaking havoc as a legendary defensive back in his decorated Hall of Fame career.

Los Angeles Rams: Merlin Olsen (Utah State)

Years with team: 1962-76.

Statistics with team: 208 games, 91 sacks and a touchdown.

Accolades with team: 14x Pro Bowler, 5x First Team All-Pro, 3x Second Team All-Pro, member of both the Rams Ring of Fame and Pro Football Hall of Fame.

Arguably the greatest NFL talent to ever come out of the state of Utah. If not for Tom Brady, the ultra popular Olsen would have the most Pro Bowl appearances in history.

Seattle Seahawks: Bobby Wagner (Utah State)

Years with team: 2012-21, 2023.

Statistics with team: 168 games, 1,566 tackles, 27 sacks, six forced fumbles, 10 fumble recoveries and four touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 9x Pro Bowler, 6x First Team All-Pro, 3x Second Team All-Pro and Super Bowl XLVIII champion.

One of the greatest linebackers of all time and the heart of Seattle’s dominant “Legion of Boom” defense.

New England Patriots: Kyle Van Noy (BYU)

Years with team: 2016-19, 2021.

Statistics with team: 67 games, 287 tackles, 21.5 sacks, seven forced fumbles, five fumble recoveries and four touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 2x Super Bowl champion and member of the Patriots All-2010s team.

A pivotal role player who always rose to the occasion in the twilight of the Patriots dynasty.

Miami Dolphins: Manny Fernandez (Utah)

Years with team: 1968-75.

Statistics with team: 103 games, 35 sacks and six fumble recoveries.

Accolades with team: 2x Second Team All-Pro, 2x Super Bowl champion and Dolphins Walk of Fame member.

A monster on the defensive line for Miami’s undefeated, Super Bowl winning 1972 squad.

Buffalo Bills: Ryan Denney (BYU)

Years with team: 2002-09.

Statistics with team: 111 games, 298 tackles, 23.5 sacks, six forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries and two touchdowns.

A solid, consistent backup defender who did everything asked of him during his time in Buffalo.

New York Jets: Jim Turner (Utah State)

Years with team: 1964-70.

Statistics with team: 98 games, 153/256 in field goals (59.8%) and 238/242 in extra points (98.3%).

Accolades with team: 2x Pro Bowler and Super Bowl III champion.

One of the finest kickers of his era who once held the NFL’s single season scoring record and helped the Jets to their lone Super Bowl win.

Cleveland Browns: Mac Speedie (Utah)

Years with team: 1946-52.

Statistics with team: 86 games, 349 receptions, 5,602 yards and 33 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 2x Pro Bowler, 3x First Team All-Pro, 2x Second Team All-Pro, 4x AAFC champion, 1950 NFL champion, Browns Ring of Honor inductee and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

One of football’s first great pass-catchers and a star for Cleveland during the franchise’s golden era.

Baltimore Ravens: Dennis Pitta (BYU)

Years with team: 2010-16.

Statistics with team: 66 games, 224 receptions, 2,098 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: Super Bowl XLVII champion.

A key offensive piece and one of Joe Flacco’s favorite targets during Baltimore’s improbable run to Super Bowl XLVII.

Pittsburgh Steelers: Roy Jefferson (Utah)

Years with team: 1965-69.

Statistics with team: 65 games, 199 receptions, 3,671 yards and 29 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 2x Pro Bowler, 1969 First Team All-Pro, 1968 Second Team All-Pro and member of the Steelers Legends Team.

Though he enjoyed further success later in his career with both Baltimore and Washington, Jefferson was an explosive offensive force in his time in Pittsburgh.

Cincinnati Bengals: Bob Trumpy (Utah)

Years with team: 1968-77.

Statistics with team: 128 games, 298 receptions, 4,600 yards and 35 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 4x Pro Bowler and 1969 First Team All-Pro.

Though he was the best tight end in Bengals history, Trumpy’s true legacy is that of a broadcasting pioneer as one of the first athletes to get behind a microphone.

Indianapolis Colts: Austin Collie (BYU)

Years with team: 2009-12.

Statistics with team: 42 games, 173 receptions, 1,845 yards and 16 touchdowns.

While his career was cut short by injuries, the connection between Collie and Peyton Manning still ranks statistically as one of the most effective between a receiver and quarterback in league history.

Jacksonville Jaguars: Devin Lloyd (Utah)

Years with team: 2022-present.

Statistics with team: 33 games, 242 tackles, three interceptions and four fumble recoveries.

The sky is the limit for the young linebacking force now entering his third season with the Jags.

Houston Texans: Brice McCain (Utah)

Years with team: 2009-13.

Statistics with team: 72 games, 124 tackles and five interceptions.

A speedy, ball-hawking cornerback able to lock up both inside and outside receivers.

Tennessee Titans: Kevin Dyson (Utah)

Years with team: 1998-2002.

Statistics with team: 58 games, 176 receptions, 2,310 yards and 18 touchdowns.

One of Steve McNair’s favorite targets during Tennessee’s heyday and the recipient of the famous “Music City Miracle” touchdown in the 1999 AFC title game.

Kansas City Chiefs: Alex Smith (Utah)

Years with team: 2013-17.

Statistics with team: 50-26 starting record, 17,608 passing yards, 102 touchdowns, 1,672 rushing yards and 10 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 3x Pro Bowler.

A remarkably efficient passer who made four trips to the playoffs with the Chiefs and played a major role in mentoring Patrick Mahomes.

Las Vegas Raiders: Todd Christensen (BYU)

Years with team: 1979-88.

Statistics with team: 136 games, 461 receptions, 5,872 yards and 41 touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 4x Pro Bowler, 2x First Team All-Pro, 2x Second Team All-Pro and 2x Super Bowl champion.

One of the most egregious Pro Football Hall of Fame snubs, Christensen was an elite tight end who helped to revolutionize the position and lead the Raiders to a pair of Super Bowl titles.

Los Angeles Chargers: Eric Weddle (Utah)

Years with team: 2007-15.

Statistics with team: 137 games, 851 tackles, 19 interceptions, five forced fumbles, six fumble recoveries and three total touchdowns.

Accolades with team: 3x Pro Bowler, 2x First Team All-Pro and 3x Second Team All-Pro.

A dominant, game-wrecking safety who captained the Chargers defense for nearly a decade as one of the franchise’s all-time greats.

Denver Broncos: Rulon Jones (Utah State)

Years with team: 1980-88.

Statistics with team: 129 games, 73.5 sacks and 10 fumble recoveries.

Accolades with team: 2x Pro Bowler, 1986 First Team All-Pro and 1985 Second Team All-Pro.

A ferocious, hard-hitting pass rusher who terrorized quarterbacks for the fifth-most career sacks in Broncos history.

If you missed the recent Utah Republican Party convention, count yourself lucky. It was 15 hours of grueling, mean, misogynist, partisan rhetoric, with some vile attacks against children thrown in for good measure.

I wasn’t there. I recently left the Utah Republican Party and my leadership positions within the party. The E. Jean Carroll trial was my last straw. Knowing that a jury of his peers found the GOP frontrunner liable in that case was something I wasn’t willing to look past.

I’m not alone. According to Gallup, in 2023, independent voters constituted the largest voting bloc in the U.S. at 43%, and above 40% for most years since 2011. Only 27% of U.S. adults identify as either Republican or Democrat. In Utah, unaffiliated voters are the second largest voting bloc after Republicans at almost 30% of registered voters.

The complexities of Utah politics make leaving the Utah GOP (and/or joining the Utah GOP) a nuanced decision — staying and/or joining in order to engage in the primary election process.

Allow me to present an alternative vision, at least as it relates to the Utah Office of the Attorney General.

Utah’s office of the attorney general has had a complicated history, to say the least. Utah’s partisan system incentivizes attorneys general to follow their donors’ wishes, enables pay-to-play schemes and ignores Utah voters, to the detriment of Utah’s top law firm.

Instead of focusing on state legal work or modernizing the office’s e-discovery methods so courts don’t label them as “haphazard,” or even ensuring the office’s staff are appropriately compensated, the partisan nature of the top leadership role changes the dynamics of that traditionally nonpartisan role.

But politics have no place in law enforcement.

Utah’s judges aren’t elected, thankfully. Attorneys aren’t political. And yet Utah’s attorney general is a partisan office.

The attorney general represents Utah voters in Utah’s highest courts. Who is representing Utah voters if a hyperpartisan attorney general is beholden to national party bosses and their purse strings or, even worse, to himself?

There is no question that the office needs reform; the for-sale sign needs to go.

One idea floated by Republican leaders is to appoint the attorney general instead of elect her. But that removes choice from Utahns and consolidates even more power in a government already controlled by a supermajority of Republican legislators (80% Republican) that fails to reflect Utah’s population (50% Republican).

The better option is to elect a nonpartisan attorney general. But Utah’s laws do not currently provide for such an option.

The next best option is to elect a third-party attorney general untainted by party politics and untethered from either major political party or their purse strings — essentially, a nonpartisan attorney general.

That is why I am running as a third-party candidate and member of the United Utah Party, whose platform includes the principle of ethical government and transparency, which is one of my priorities in office.

I’ve been a Wall Street lawyer, a federal court clerk, a solo practitioner, a law school dean of admissions, a Utah State Bar commissioner, and am now a business litigator, appellate advocate and familiar face in Utah’s legal community.

As you make your decision about who you will vote for in the Republican primary over the next month, I urge you to remember there is a better option on the November ballot.

A vote for me in November will do three things:

1. Send a message to those who have been stewards of this office for decades that voters are unhappy with that stewardship.
2. Reform the office to what is essentially a nonpartisan attorney general and get the politics out of the office by disconnecting it from big party bosses and their purse strings.
3. Elect the best candidate with the most experience and service in Utah’s legal community whose only interest is to refocus back on state legal issues.

I look forward to earning your vote in November.

Michelle Quist is a business litigator and appellate attorney at Holland & Hart in Salt Lake City, a mother of seven and the United Utah Party candidate for attorney general of Utah.

Residents have issued their own warning about what could be permanently lost.

Weber County has some of the most stunning lands and vistas in the state of Utah. Now the Utah Inland Port Authority is poised to turn almost 9,000 acres of largely undeveloped land, near the imperiled Great Salt Lake and the Harold Crane and Ogden Bay waterfowl management areas, into industrial concrete and asphalt projects.

More than 2,000 years ago in ancient Greece, the storyteller Aesop issued a warning that will be ignored at our peril. He told of a farmer who owned a wonderful goose that each day laid a golden egg. The farmer grew rich, but he just had to have more. One day, his greed and impatience got the best of him because he wasn’t getting rich fast enough. He killed the goose to dig out all the eggs inside her. Sadly, there were none, as she could only lay one a day. And now his lovely goose was dead.

Residents of western Weber County have beautiful golden eggs — wetlands, open spaces, wildlife habitat, clear skies, peace and quiet — riches by anyone’s definition. But UIPA and the Weber County Commission, which has voted to support UIPA’s plans, want their goose for different kinds of riches.

The residents are pushing back. They have issued their own warning about what could be permanently lost, requesting that the final decision be put on hold until the repercussions are fully studied, and more citizens are made aware of them.

The statement reads, “This project area cedes local control and budget authority to a state-appointed board. Various groups across the political spectrum are calling on Weber County to study the full impact, including the budget burden to local taxpayers, attracting heavy truck traffic to an area that does not have it now, bright lighting, destruction of wetlands, inestimable noise and attracting sources of air pollution.”

John Valentine, head of the Utah Tax Commission, spoke about a different kind of golden egg at a recent meeting of the Utah Taxpayer Association. This golden egg is our tax base that pays for schools, parks, road repairs, emergency services, fire and police protection.

According to Fox13 News, Valentine warned, “Some of the projects that we’ve passed in the state are eroding the tax base by sales tax diversions and tax increment financing.” He included the inland port as one example.

UIPA’s Weber County inland port project will keep 75% of all property and sales taxes it generates to be used at the board’s discretion and give back only 25% of those revenues to local governments.

In other words, UIPA and developers will build the port, but government entities will have only 25% to provide critical services. UIPA will build infrastructure, but they will not maintain it.

Rusty Cannon, president of the taxpayers’ association, issued his own warning about projects that have been adding up over decades.

“It’s just death by a thousand cuts. It’s been coming and it’s starting to hollow out our tax base.” he said.

This could lead to increased taxes for the part of the county that is not in the project area.

At a meeting in February, Weber County commissioners questioned whether 25% will be enough to provide all the services needed. Scott Wolford, Vice President of the Business Development Team for the Utah Inland Port Authority, stated, “We don’t have to get it right today. We’re just taking our best guess. We will adjust through the 25 years.”

He assured the commissioners that they can vote later to take a certain parcel out of the inland port project area if the tax structure doesn’t work. All they have to do, he said, is to ask the UIPA board, “Please remove this from the project area, and our board will take it out.”

Wolford admitted, however, there is no statutory protection for Weber County and that the five-member, appointed board has final authority. He made an unwritten promise, based on nothing but his word, that UIPA’s decisions can be easily reversed.

He also applied pressure for a quick decision by reporting that we have “a lot of communities stacked up for project areas,” so Weber County could lose its place in line.

If UIPA approves the project at its meeting on Monday, it looks like they and the taxpayer-subsidized developers will keep the miraculous goose. Once she’s dead, her bones will be tossed back to the people.

You can’t resurrect a dead goose, and you can’t restore acres and acres of land taken away from future generations and destroyed forever.

Aesop always gave us the moral of his stories for those of us who miss the point. “Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have.”

Ann Florence taught English and journalism and now teaches therapeutic poetry at the Youth Resource Center for unsheltered young people. She finds solitude, healing and inspiration in nature.

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