Tommy Vardell Madden Career 1995-2000 - Peak 84 OVR

Tommy Vardell arrived in the NFL as Touchdown Tommy, a nickname Dennis Green hung on him at Stanford after he scored four times against Notre Dame, and Cleveland liked the college production enough to make him the ninth overall pick in 1992. The pro version was a blocking fullback, not a scorer, and the nickname followed him around as a gentle irony for the rest of his career.

Madden rated his best year an 84, back with the Browns for the 1994 season, and mostly kept him in the modest range a lead-blocking fullback earns. There is a glitch in his 49ers years, a card listing him at a 22, a scrape error that pops up on role players, but the honest read was a fullback in the 50s and 70s, useful and unspectacular. He played for San Francisco in 1996 and again in 1999, sandwiching a stint in Detroit.

Vardell finished with 1,427 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns, a solid pro career if not the star turn a top-ten pick implies. His bigger success came afterward, when he co-founded a venture capital firm with former teammates and made a second career in finance. Touchdown Tommy scored more often on Wall Street than he ever did in the pros, but the fullback did his blocking job well enough to last eight years.