{"id":623538,"date":"2026-04-23T15:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/623538\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:29:11","slug":"bills-former-1st-round-pick-is-forever-tied-to-espns-nfl-draft-pick-chime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/623538\/","title":{"rendered":"Bills’ former 1st-round pick is forever tied to ESPN’s NFL Draft pick chime"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re a Buffalo Bills<\/a> fan and want an incredible bit of sports trivia, you’ve come to the right place.<\/p>\n

Did you know that a former Bills first-round pick was preceded by ESPN’s first-ever use of its now-ubiquitous draft pick chime?<\/p>\n

It’s true.<\/p>\n

It was 2006, and ESPN had just created this new chime.<\/p>\n

\u201cKevin Wilson\u00a0and I were just messing around with an electric piano in the basement of Building Three,\u201d Ackels said,\u00a0via ESPN Front Row<\/a>. “…\u00a0The chime was just one idea among many we were trying out that year. Some stuck, others didn\u2019t. That\u2019s the nature. That\u2019s also what makes it a great story \u2014 the life it has taken on after little fanfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Shedeur Sanders sets the bar for NFL Draft craziness<\/a><\/p>\n

They needed to debut it to see if it worked, though.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, they didn’t use it right off the bat in 2006. They let seven picks pass by chime-less.<\/p>\n

But before the eighth pick, which was the Bills choice, they played the chime.<\/p>\n

It stuck.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0The full origin story of ESPN’s NFL Draft pick chime<\/a><\/p>\n

And oh yeah, then the Bills made a pick — Donte Whitner, the hard-hitting safety.<\/p>\n

Whitner played five seasons for the Bills, then suited up for San Francisco, Cleveland and Washington.<\/p>\n

He retired after the 2016 season.<\/p>\n

The chime? It’s long outlived Whitner, and it isn’t going anywhere.<\/p>\n

More NFL Draft news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’re a Buffalo Bills fan and want an incredible bit of sports trivia, you’ve come to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-623538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}