Ted Washington Madden Career 1994-2008 - Peak 91 OVR

Ted Washington was a mountain of a man, a nose tackle out of Louisville who stood 6-foot-5 and carried something close to 370 pounds, and San Francisco made him a first-round pick, 25th overall, in 1991. His three seasons with the 49ers were the developing years of a career that would outlast almost everyone's, and the grades from that time reflect a young player still learning to move all that mass.

This is the clearest case on the roster of Madden catching a player long after he left. Washington was a 56 in his early cards and dipped into the 40s, an ordinary interior lineman, before the game slowly figured out what he was. His overall climbed into the high 80s and peaked at 91 years later, with Buffalo and then Oakland, as he became one of the best run-stuffers of his era and his strength rating crept toward 99. San Francisco had the raw material. Everyone after got the finished product.

Washington played seventeen seasons for seven teams, made four Pro Bowls, and won a Super Bowl ring with New England after the 2003 season, retiring at 39. The 49ers drafted him and moved on after three years, never seeing the two-decade prime that followed. Madden's grade tells that story better than any: a middling number in red and gold, and a 91 in someone else's colors a decade down the road.