Jeff Wilkins Madden Career 1996-2008 - Peak 95 OVR

Jeff Wilkins kicked at Youngstown State, went undrafted, and got his first real NFL job in San Francisco, handling the placekicking for the 49ers in 1995 and 1996. It was a decent start to a career that would take off only after he left, the way a lot of kicking careers do.

Madden's 49ers cards of him are unremarkable and a little rough: an 82 for the 1995 season and then a 40 for 1996, one of those wild kicker swings the game produces when accuracy wobbles. His grade did not really climb until he got to St. Louis, where it eventually reached a 95, the game finally recognizing one of the most reliable legs of his era.

Wilkins spent eleven seasons with the Rams, won Super Bowl XXXIV as part of the Greatest Show on Turf, made a Pro Bowl in 2003, and retired as the franchise's all-time leading scorer with more than 1,400 points. San Francisco had him at the very start, before the accuracy and the accolades, when he was just an undrafted kid from Youngstown trying to hold a job. The low early 49ers grades were the prologue. The 95 came later, and somewhere else.