Coming off a bittersweet 15-win season in 1998, the Minnesota Vikings and head coach Dennis Green entered the 1999 NFL Draft with a focus on finding the next group of prospects to lead the franchise to greatness.
In the first round of the draft, the Vikings had two selections after acquiring an additional first-round pick earlier in the year from a trade that sent veteran quarterback Brad Johnson to Washington.
With their first selection in the opening round, Minnesota drafted former UCF signal-caller Daunte Culpepper with the 11th overall pick. Then, with the No. 29 selection in the first round, the Vikings picked former Michigan State defensive lineman Dimitrius Underwood, who wound up never playing a single snap for the franchise.
Weirdest moment in Minnesota Vikings history belongs to Dimitrius Underwood
While Culpepper went on to have a memorable career in a Minnesota uniform, Underwood's tenure with the organization lasted a single practice.
The rookie defensive lineman participated in one Vikings training camp practice during the summer of 1999, and then two weeks later, the team waived him.
Underwood was eventually claimed on waivers by the Miami Dolphins and then released near the end of the 1999 season after an eventful tenure that included cutting his own throat with two steak knives, a bipolar diagnosis, and an escape from a psychiatric care facility.
A few weeks after the Dolphins moved on from him, he was signed by the Dallas Cowboys, and he actually went on to appear in 15 games during the 2000 season. It seemed like Underwood was getting his life back together, but then, after another suicide attempt in early 2001, the Cowboys released him in the middle of the 2001 season.
That was his final year in an NFL tenure that was likely nothing what the Vikings had ever envisioned when they used a first-round draft pick on him in 1999.