Notre Dame football: Top-10 draft picks of the Brian Kelly era

Notre Dame Football has produced a ton of NFL talent under Brian Kelly, and here are the top-10 draft picks of his Era as head coach in South Bend.

Have you ever wondered why Notre Dame Football puts so much emphasis on Irish in the NFL? It’s a recruiting tool. Players with dreams of playing in the NFL want to go somewhere where they’ll be found easily and given the spotlight to shine. So, by spotlighting NFL talent, it’s showing off to recruits that Notre Dame is a place where they can go and then move onto the NFL from.

Throughout Notre Dame’s history, there have been great NFL players to come out of South Bend. Alan Page, Joe Montana, and Jerome Bettis come to mind as a few of the great Irish players in the NFL. But, what about more modern players who you can still watch playing on Sundays?

There have been many great Irish players taken in the NFL Draft under Brian Kelly, but who are the ten best?

To make this list, Notre Dame players who were drafted when Brian Kelly was the coach and played at least one season under him are eligible. This eliminates anyone drafted in the 2010 NFL Draft, who only ever played under Charlie Weis, like Golden Tate.

The players also won’t be judged based on their time at Notre Dame. Instead, they’ll be judged based on their NFL careers. Most players who made the list were first-round picks, so the order they were drafted in didn’t play a particular role, at least as it relates to being rated as a valuable pick.

So, who are the ten best players to be drafted during the Brian Kelly era out of Notre Dame?