Kirk Scrafford Madden Career 1994-1998 - Peak 78 OVR

Kirk Scrafford was an All-American tackle at Montana who went undrafted in 1990 and made a nine-year career out of being useful. He bounced from Cincinnati to Denver to San Francisco, where he spent his last four seasons, from 1995 to 1998, as a swing lineman and spot starter, just the versatile body every line needs and few fans notice.

Madden's cards of him are sparse and a little noisy, as they tend to be for a backup. His best number was a 78 for the 1994 season with Denver, inflated by a 99 awareness rating that looks like a data artifact, and his 49ers grades sat lower, a 48 and a 61, the honest range for a reserve tackle. The game had little to measure because he was rarely a full-time starter, and the numbers reflect it.

Scrafford's career ended quietly and a little sadly. He retired after the 1997 season with a neck injury, then came back midseason in 1998 to help a playoff push before hanging it up for good. He was a role player in the truest sense, a lineman who filled whatever gap opened up for the better part of a decade. Madden never had much to say about him, which is its own kind of accurate.