By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

Rodney Bellinger of the Bills

Taken in Round 3 in 1984

Other pick in the round: Terry Hoage went to the Saints at No. 68. He was the last defensive back taken before Bellinger, and spent 12 years with several teams during a fine career.

The details: Bellinger came out of Miami (Fla.), where he was a cornerback for the Hurricanes’ national championship team in 1983. Rodney’s career never had much traction in the pros. He finished with 42 games played with the Bills, starting 11 of them.

Other 77s: Leonard Burton, an offensive lineman, was taken by the Bills in 1986. He spent four seasons as a backup, only starting seven games. Mike Pandolfo was the No. 77 choice in the 1998 draft by the Sabres. He attended Boston University for four years and then was traded to Columbus in 2002 as part of an exchange in draft choice. Mike played three games for the Blue Jackets.

(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)

Budd Bailey

Budd Bailey has been involved in almost every aspect of the local sports scene for the last 40 years. He worked for WEBR Radio, the Buffalo Sabres' public relations department and The Buffalo News during that time. In that time he covered virtually every aspect of the area's sports world, from high schools to the Bills and Sabres and everything in between. Along the way, Budd served as a play-by-play announcer for the Bisons, an analyst for the Stallions, and a talk-show host. He won the National Lacrosse League's Tom Borrelli Award as the media personality of the year in 2011, and was a finalist for that same award in 2017. Budd's seventh and eighth books, one on the Transcontinental Railroad and the other about Ichiro Suzuki, are scheduled to be released in the fall.

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