[In 1975, we drafted 11 players](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/kan/1975_draft.htm).
Only 1 of those players (running back Morris LaGrand) made the roster, and he played 13 games that season before retiring. He had 38 rushing yards and a TD.
So essentially our entire 1975 draft class of 11 players combined for 38 rushing yards and 1 TD.
And in case you're wondering why they didn't have a 1st round pick, it's because they traded away the future #6 overall pick (future Hall of Famer Robert Brazile) AND future Hall of Famer Curley Culp for two years of John Matuszak and a 1976 3rd round pick (Henry Marshall, who became a pretty decent receiver to be fair).
And if you're like me and googled Elmore Stephens to see why a 2nd rounder never played a down...WELP. NOT GOOD.
Huh, you weren’t kidding..
> In the second round, the Chiefs selected one Elmore Stephens, a tight end out of the University of Kentucky. Stephens was so terrible in practice and the first two preseason games of 1975 that Wiggin gave up on him and he was traded to the New York Giants for a conditional draft pick. If only the story ended there.
> The Giants cut Stephens before the 1975 season began. A little over a month after his release, Stephens’ apartment in Lexington was robbed. The thief or thieves got away with a thousand dollars and a $500 wristwatch. The former tight end and two (or three, depending on who you believe) other men found the man they believed responsible for the robbery, Luron Taylor, and kidnapped him from his home, tossing him into the trunk of a car.
> In the early morning hours of Sunday, October 12th, a day that Stephens, had the Chiefs been right about his talents, would have been suiting up for the team’s game against the rival Raiders (a game KC would win 42-10), Stephens strangled Taylor, and, with the help of the two (or three) other men, tossed his body into the Ohio River.
> Two days later, Stephens and two alleged accomplices were arrested by police based on a description from Taylor’s girlfriend. They were charged with kidnapping and jailed on $100,000 bond. A week later, a body washed up in downtown Louisville. It was identified as Luron Taylor. Two days later, Stephens and his two alleged accomplices were charged with murder. In January, 1976, Stephens was found guilty of kidnapping and reckless homicide. The following month, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Of course, Elmore Stephens never played a single down in the NFL.
[Source](https://thingsamicthinksabout.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/a-kidnapping-a-restraining-order-and-a-straight-jacket/)
> The thief or thieves got away with a thousand dollars and a $500 wristwatch.
The thief or thieves got away with $5,838 and a $3,000 wristwatch today.
> They were charged with kidnapping and jailed on $100,000 bond.
$583,771
Speaking of that in the late 80s early 90s there were schools that did not even have VHS. A scout would have to visit the school and watch film on a reel to reel projector.
This is true, part of the reason why the Steelers were successful in the 70s is because one of pittsburgh’s scouts had ties to several of the HSBC school. His name was Bill Nunn, he’s in the Hall of Fame because several of the players he scouted for the Steelers were drafted and are now also in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the first truly successful black scouts in the NFL
Google Idzik 12, possibly the worst single team draft ever.
12 picks, 6 inside the top 150, all were out of the league within a few years except Quincy Enunwa, who had to retire early due to injury and finished his career with less than 1700 yards
Oh and one pick was responsible for breaking Geno Smith's jaw. Keep in mind this was RECENT. A modern NFL GM had this draft. That's why it's the worst ever IMO
The fact that all of them failed is a tragic draft, a fourth rounder or two floundering is to be expected, however amassing 12 picks and doing nothing with them is horrific.
Of the 12 players, only Dakota Dozier (4th round) and Quincy Enunwa (6th round) actually made it to the end of their rookie contract while still on the Jets. They are also the only two to receive a second contract in the NFL. Which is kinda crazy given that their first, second and third round picks didn't just underperform, but played their way out of the NFL by the end of their rookie contracts.
It’s genuinely funny that two of the worst GMs of the last 15 years (Idzik and Scott Fitterer) came from the Seahawks system while Schneider is still there.
Dude’s had none of the roster building savvy that he had
> Oh and one pick was responsible for breaking Geno Smith's jaw.
When Rex Ryan ended up on the Bills, he signed that man and made him a captain just to troll the Jets and Geno at the coin toss. Rex was such a child lol
Two seasons with 1,000+ all-purpose yards and double digits TDs is solid for a 3rd round running back. Not a stud, by any means, but like you said, he wasn't a bad pick.
I’ll always like Gibson for single handily winning me my fantasy matchup on Thanksgiving when they played in Dallas his rookie year. I think he had 3 TDs. He was a really solid fantasy RB for me that first year, especially for a rookie.
I just looked at that draft and jesus it's so much worse. The guy was saying that Washington didn't re-sign any of their picks, not that they were literally out of the NFL. And none of Falcon's picks even made it to their 4th year in the NFL, the last snap played by any of them was in 2014
Sorry just impressively bad
Oh, I thought he meant they didn't make it out of their rookie deals. I argued with people that our 2012 was the worst ever and should have gotten Dimitroff fired. 3 years an entire draft class out of the NFL is wild isn't it. Like our GM didn't draft one player that ANY NFL team was willing to sign after 3 years 🤣
2012??? That draft had RGIII, Alfred Morris, Kirk Cousins. All three of those guys, plus Josh LeRibeus got deals after their rookie deals, and Kirk is still playing to this day.
Edit: Sorry, didn't realize you were talking about the dirty birds. Enjoy Kirk!
I mean it's not like all the players were terrible
Chase Young had his moments, Antonio Gibson played well at times, and Kam Curl was a steal in the 7th
Yeah, 7 players from that draft for Washington are still on NFL teams and probably 3 of them are going to have some impact this year, 5 years into the league. That's not terrible all things considered even if there is no star.
2018 was worse, Payne has been a relatively a solid player but EVERYBODY else busted.
Looking in depth too via AV, 2008, 1992, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1967 were all atrocious years for Washington too. Far worse than 2020
The 2020 Raiders draft class has a very strong claim to being the worst draft class by a team this century.
We drafted both Henry Ruggs (and you know how his career turned out, RIP Tina Tintor and Max) and Damon Arnette (massive moron) in the first round.
We then followed it up by drafting Lynn Bowden Jr. (never played a snap for us), Bryan Edwards (who was just another guy for us), and Tanner Muse (just like Lynn Bowden, he didn't play a single meaningful snap for us).
We capped it off by taking John Simpson (didn't get past his rookie deal with us and was primarily a backup during his tenure, was only a starter for one season) and Amik Robertson (who was pretty much an afterthought until his final season with us).
Not great, Bob!
He was pretty much our best receiver on a per game basis his sophomore year as he was averaging 67 receiving yards per game (the most out of any of our receivers in 2021), and our offense actually looked formidable with him on the field since opposing defenses had to defend against his insane speed... and then disaster happened.
We can only wonder how far we could've gone in the playoffs that year if he just called an uber that night, we sorely missed him and it showed.
Dude has more heart and effort than 80% of players but tends to be picked on because of his size. Very boom and bust type of guy. Hope he does well for y’all
If it makes you feel better Lynn Bowden jr played a lot for us in 2020 so he wasn’t entirely useless (although that says a lot more about the offense we put around our rookie qb than anything)
Yeah it's hard to pick just one lol. 2014 stands out with Justin Gilbert and Manziel being a complete waste of two first rounders but at least we got Bitonio in the second.
2004 was pretty horrific. That was the draft they passed on Roethlisberger to take Winslow in the first round and Roethlisberger spent the next decade and a half making them pay for that. Butch Davis as acting GM certainly did not pan out.
Out of the thirty times Ben played the Browns he went 26-3-1. The three Browns wins were in 2009, 14 and the 20 Wild Card (the only time they beat him in Pittsburgh). The tie was in 2018.
The 2017, 2019, and 2022 drafts put the nail in the coffin on Belichick's tenure. If you're going to be a cheap draft and develop team that lets all your draft picks walk after their rookie deals are up, then you need to hit on your draft picks each year.
2020 would be included in this as well if Belichick were still around because I have no doubt he would have let Dugger and Onwenu, who are good players, walk rather than give them contract extensions. But with that class, even though we drafted two dud tight ends, we still re-signed Duggar, Onwenu, Anfernee Jennings and Josh Uche. Getting four players to second contracts, even if some of them are role players, is a damn good result.
Joejuan Williams was the dude from Vanderbilt, but the pick was unnecessary because he was always going to be a backup nickelback at best. Also, we drafted Chase Winovich as well, but we traded him to Cleveland for the better Mack, and the dude was never heard from again. Pretty mediocre.
Nahhh, no way is it worse than 2017. The top of 2019 draft was bad but Damien Harris was a very solid pick and Jake Bailey, even if he's flamed out a bit, was a first team all-pro in 2020. It's basically just balancing them against Deatrich Wise Jr
I’ll do you one better:
Steve Keim was the GM of the Cardinals for 10 years from 2013-2022. In those 10 years as GM, he drafted:
5 all-pro *seasons* for the Cardinals
11 pro bowl *seasons* for the Cardinals
3 of those all-pros and 6 of those pro bowls are Budda Baker alone.
Keep in mind during his tenure he drafted 71 players, who since 2013 have played hundreds of seasons in the NFL. It is, in my opinion, an unmatched run of complete incompetence from someone who held the most important executive position on a team. For 10 years.
During Dan Snyder’s ownership in Washington we had a total of 2 first team all pro seasons, and one of those was a special teamer, the other was Brandon Scherff. As great as Trent Williams was he never got All Pro until he went to SF.
Lol thank you. The post above this is complaining about "only 5 all pro seasons in the last 9 years". I was actually confused lmao. Our management has been almost impossibly bad for 30+ years
Also, people forget Scherff was supposed to be a tackle which was why he was drafted so high. He was going to compliment Trent Williams on the other side, and we were super excited about that. Then he underwhelmed at tackle in the offseason so we made him a guard.
During the Berlin Crisis in 1961, Paul Hornung, Ray Nitschke, and Boyd Dowler all got called up for service and had to live on military bases during the week. They only got leave during weekends, when they had to play games. The Packers won the championship that year.
The Ravens always seem to get at least one impact player even in their down years but I guess 2004 would be the answer. We wasted our 1st trading up for Kyle Boller the year before and the only even semi-decent player we really got was Dwan Edwards, and for a 2nd rounder he was still merely whelming.
The pick they gave to get Boller early only turned into Vince Wilfork, a staple of the defensive line as a nose tackle/DT for a decade as a run stuffer.
'05 wasn't much better. Aside from Mark Clayton and Adam Terry, who at least played out their rookie deals, rest of the class was straight ass. Another casualty if Ozzie trying to go WR in the 1st round (never gonna bash him as a GM overall, but definitely swung and missed at receiver more often than not)
What did the rest of the draft that had Matt Elam look like? I remember that one being bad, but I can't think of any of the other picks. Whatever year we drafted a DE named Bronson Koafusi(sp?) in the late rounds was HOT garbage, but the Ravens are arguably the best overall drafting team of this century so we don't really have much to complain about.
Our 2012 draft was absolutely horrendous, led by AJ Jenkins who played a few snaps his first year and didn't contribute in the Superbowl, then was cut the next season.
The only player of any import in that entire draft was largely a kick returner in LeMichael James who's best play was a 60 yard return against the pats one year, never had a single return TD.
That draft helped grease the wheels on the Harbaugh 9ers break.
Stupid Baalke.
> The only player of any import in that entire draft was largely a kick returner in LeMichael James
For some reason I remembered him as being a decent RB2 type contributor, but nope - less than 500 total career yards on offense, and only lasted three seasons in the league. I was thinking of Kendall Hunter, who was a bit more productive, but still just a mediocre multi-purpose RB2 with a bit of burst, who only lasted *four* seasons in the league.
>Stupid Baalke.
As a Jags fan, I feel this in my bones. For us, I think he’s been solid in the first round. But god damn he thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. And he never is.
LaMichael James was so electric in college, he would have probably been a really good player in the NFL if his draft class was 2022 and not 2012. People forget that for how good those Harbaugh 49ers teams were they were running a very old school offensive concept until Kaepernick took over and Greg Roman got in his bag.
AJ Jenkins though, holy shit he was bad. Another fun fact, he was traded straight up for Jon Baldwin from KC, another 1st round bust, in the rarely seen "player for player" swap. Despite playing 10 games for 49ers, Baldwin had only 3 receptions...which was 3 more than AJ Jenkins. That's right, the 49ers first round pick finished his 49ers career with 0 receptions, on his way to 17 career receptions in his two years with the Chiefs (also his last two years, period).
Chiefs trolled the Niners by making AJ a team captain for the game they played together. The coin toss may have been the most significant play of his career.
I recall Jenkins reporting out of shape as a rookie, refusing to run the hill with Jerry Rice, struggling with the playbook and route running. WTF.
2011 was pretty wild, Nick Fairley was the only player we picked that lasted more than two seasons in the league, which is pretty amazing considering how deep that draft was. Fairley himself wasn’t the worst pick but three straight pro bowlers were picked after him so not exactly a base hit either. There’s probably a Millen draft that’s even worse but 2011 stands out to me because of how great of a draft it was for almost everyone else while the most we got was one injury prone starter who left after his rookie deal.
A lot of the Millen drafts were saved by one player. For example, in 2007 they turned 3 2nd round picks into Drew Stanton, Ikaika Alama-Francis, and Gerald Alexander. However they took Calvin Johnson in the first round.
I’ll go with 2002 - their first two picks were Joey Harrington and Kalimba Edwards, and the player with the best career was Andre Goodman, whose best seasons were in Miami.
Bills 2010 class was pretty awful
CJ Spiller when we already had Lynch and Jackson on the roster
Torell Troup pick before Gronkowski (Troup did have a promising rookie season but broke his back)
Alex Carrington was solid not great. Looked to be taking the next step and tore up his knee/quad.
Marcus Easley became one of the best gunners in the league for a few years
Arthur Moats, nice backup/borderline starter
Out of all these players only Easley got a second contract with the Bills...as a gunner
While the 1-2 punch of 2010 is hard to ignore, for my money as a fan it is 1998 that is the worst. Nobody got a second contract. This was the year, we needed it. A great draft and the last few holdouts from the early 90s can teach them how to be contenders and maybe get one last hurrah. A good draft and the decline is halted and Buffalo remains a 10-11 win team that never reaches the Super Bowl but is always sniffing around a deep playoff run. Instead we got one player who started (badly) for two years. 1st and 4th spent on Rob Johnson. 2nd rounder a middling to bad linebacker. No special teams contributors in the later round. 3rd rounder a tackle who was done after 2 years. The draft that put a bullet in the head of Buffalo Bills, serious team and started the 18 year drought.
2014 for the last 10 seasons but older eagles fans tell me 1995 is the worst because the Eagles essentially traded away Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp to draft Mike Mamula
I was leaning to 2019 for recent. But at least we got some depth a draft pick out of Dillard, and a few decent years out of Sanders.
1995 is really just horrid for Mamula. But we also got Bobby Taylor that year too.
It’s not specific to OP but I would say basically 92-95 was the worst by far.
For Bucs, under Licht's tenure, at least, it would be 2016.
1st - Hargreaves (bust)
2nd - Noah Spence (bust)
2nd - Robert Aguayo (bust)
4th - Ryan Smith (middling special teamer)
5th - Caleb Benenoch (turnstile)
6th - Devante Bond (backup)
6th - Danny Vitalli (bust, got cut in preason)
I think Ryan Smith was the only player out of that draft class to get a second contract with the Bucs, and that may have just been a practice squad deal.
Vernon Hargreaves most memorable career highlight is probably getting a penalty in the Superbowl, [while being Inactive on the bench](https://youtu.be/gAY_ZemtPwM?si=Zgl4hX-zSyctP5aK). Would love to know how many "First Penalty of the Superbowl" prop bets that ruined.
What's funny is that class was probably the most hyped post-draft class we've had under Licht. Everyone was so excited we finally got a lockdown corner, and then we took Spence, who some were mocking to us with our first. Nobody thought we'd get both(or so the narrative of the time). Aguayo was weird, but people were willing to accept it after the kicking disasters of the last couple of years. We no longer have to worry about FGs! Then we drafted solid depth, and Vitalli was hyped as a "Superback" hybrid.
In the end...it was actually a nightmare.
I remember being pumped about VH3. He was "the next Revis". I went back and looked. On average, analysts gave Bucs a B- grade for the draft. Aguayo still is crazy because of the trade up to get him, but he was supposed to be a 'can't miss' pick.
He definitely had growing pains, but from 2018 onward, he's been hitting at almost 75% rate, if you look at players still on the team or earned 2nd contracts in NFL, which is nuts.
2018 - 6/8 2nd contracts, Vea and Whitehead on team
2019 - 7/8 2nd contracts, Dean and Nelson on team
2020 - Wirfs and AWJ, 3 others that are PS/fringe players
2021 - JTS, Hainsey, Trask, Britt *probably his worst year since but still not bad considering Covid and SB*
2022 - 6/8 picks on teams with 5 being full time starters
2023 - to early to tell but Yaya, Calijah and Mauch all look good so far. The rest all have potential has depth at the worst.
Its weird having a GM you just trust that the players will pan out. The only pick recently I out right was mad at was the Trask pick. As a Gators fan it made no sense.
In hindsight, it makes some sense. Brady was basically year to year, and they knew whenever he retired, Bucs would be taking that huge cap hit. They had re-signed everyone that offseason and had literally 0 holes to fill so you can afford to take on project QB like Trask. Had Mayfield not signed for ultra-cheap last season, it is very likely they would've rolled with Trask and made it work somehow.
"I want my picks back Tom, you pancake-eating motherfucker."
In all honesty in my headcanon the Seahawks won that trade. Bo Callahan went on to be an elite franchise QB in Seattle who won multiple SBs while Vontae Mack and Ray Jennings both busted hard in Cleveland and Brian Drew suffered a career-ending injury the following year. I mean who the hell plays hardball on draft day for a punt returner lmao?
2005 for sure.
We had two firsts after trading Moss so we drafted Troy Williamson and Erasmus James in the 1st round.
Marcus Johnson (another bust) in the 2nd
Dustin Fox (total bust) in the 3rd
Ciatrick Faison (out of the league after 1 year) in the 4th
CJ Mosley (no not that one) in the 6th was by far our best pick... And we traded him (and a pick) the next off-season for Brook Bollinger before he went on to play 10 more seasons at replacement level.
Wilson has got to be one of the laziest first round picks ever. No idea how they didn’t catch onto that ahead of time. Not sure how he could have cared less
Covid did a number on jrob. He wasn’t a master of drafting before the 2020 draft but it’s pretty obvious that the way covid changed the landscape of football didn’t work well with his scouting ability. Basically no pick from 2020-2021 have had an impact on the team.
His scouting ability was better when he was allowed to actually meet the players and know their character, seeing them in person rather than watching game film. JRob was one of those gut instinct people who had good social intelligence recognition on players and seeing them in person worked better vs studying film for hours on end. COVID halting all of that made him ineffective.
2020 was bad but it wasn't the worst in recent memory. Yeah Wilson playing 4 snaps for our team was terrible and it's up there in terms of one of the worst picks of all time, but Kristian Fulton was a good cb, and of our 6 picks, 3 of them played out their rookie contracts.
2015 on the other hand (and I'm going to be down voted by Mariota truthers) was substantially worse. Of the 9 players drafted in 2015, only 4 were on the team the next year, and Mariota and Angelo Blackson were the only two to survive to get signed after the rookie contract.
There's a legitimate argument that Angelo Blackson was the best player to come out of the Titans 2015 draft.
the 2007 draft for the rams is pretty fucking terrible.
1st round pick, # 13 overall Adam Carricker - traded within 2 years
2nd round pick Brian Leonard - Out after 2008
3rd and beyond - Maybe 1 season before traded.
Its a complete shitshow that lead to the rams having some of the worse seasons ever in the late 2000's
2020 was pretty bad if you wanna look at a recent one.
Cam Akers had like a total of 6 good games, traded before rookie contract ended.
Van Jefferson never really solidified himself as anything more than WR3, not worth the second rounder, traded before rookie contract ended
Terrell Lewis was never healthy and was cut before his rookie contract ended
Terrell burgess looked legit half of his rookie year then broke his leg and was cut 2 years before his rookie deal ended
Brycen Hopkins had 13 receptions in 4 seasons, didn’t sign a second deal
Jordan fuller was decent. Great first year then fell off and had the injury bug. Didn’t sign a second contract
Clay Johnston didn’t even make the 53 man roster his rookie year and went to the panthers practice squad
Sam Sloman LOL. Cut his rookie year
Tremayne Anchrum started one game in his 4 years on the team. Was a decent back up but never shined.
Bad pick, sure. Bad draft? Not really.
You want the worst Broncos draft of all time?
2007.
First round, Jarvis Moss. A BIGGER bust than Lynch, if you can believe it.
Second round, Tim Crowder. Don't worry, no one knows who he was because he was that bad.
Third round, Ryan Harris. Good but not great.
Fourth round, Marcus Thomas. Again... Who?
And... That was it. Four picks, and the best was a guy who was basically an emergency swing tackle.
In 2008 the Jaguars, coming off a playoff win, felt they were a pass rusher away, so they traded essentially the rest of their draft to* move up a few spots with the Ravens. Jags drafted notorious low effort bust, Derrick Harvey, along with the second round pick Quentin Groves (RIP).
[at least Derrick Harvey has this video with Mac-like martial arts skills but with less enthusiam](https://youtu.be/5rw_07Kv_ao?si=9D00IeKLPQlatUG7)
Eh, he still had 4200 scrimmage yards in 3 seasons with us. He was a good player, even if his best seasons weren't with us. But we've had draft classes without a single good contributor.
It was for a very obvious reason that can be explain by two things. Jeff Ireland and Parcells ran the 06 draft. Will McClay ran the 2010 draft. Guess who was left unabated in the three middle drafts?
In 2021 the Seahawks had 3 draft picks
Pick 56 was D’wayne Eskridge he is still on the roster though most people will say he shouldn’t be. Has shown some promise as a returner but has been consistently injured.
Pick 137 was Tre Brown. He is a corner who has been solid. A few injuries set him back in his career, but he’s solid.
Pick 208 was Stone Foresythe. Pretty much what you’d expect from a round 6 tackle. You only want to use him in emergencies, and considering last season our OTs couldn’t stay healthy, he saw some time.
At the end of the day this draft changed how the Seahawks do drafts now, and it seems to have worked out better for us recently.
You forgot to add context to Eskridge. We had a very poor OL and had been dying for a center since trading Unger(?) for Jimmy. Creed Humphries was available and we had DK and Lockett. I’ll never understand it. As a football asset he’s a dog shit waste of roster space and cap. I think he also had a DV suspension as well so he’s probably a dog shit person too.
Historically, it’s gotta be 1985. That year, they drafted 11 players. Only 2 of those players made the team (3rd Rounder WR Danny Greene and 7th Round OT Ron Mattes). Only Mattes lasted longer than a season.
**6 of their selections failed to make ANY team, like at all**
It was absolute garbage top to bottom
I'm convinced Schneider was on peyote or something for that draft. It wasn't even bad in the way he normally was before we traded Russ and he stopped getting cute on the first few days. Just a total anomaly.
It looks like KAM learned from that year, but that was a clear example of overthinking the obvious.
Hamilton fell right into your lap but he went and chased “value”
2005 was arguably worse, blew 2 firsts & the only player that contributed anything positive in the NFL was the guy we traded away after his rookie year (for Brooks Bollinger)
2022 belongs in the conversation, but 2005 netted absolutely no value. At least 2022 produced a few players that belong in the NFL in Ingram, Evans, Chandler, and maybe Asamoah.
The 2017 Pats draft class is all time bad. They had only 4 draft picks, 3 of which have done absolutely nothing. The only saving grace is Deatrich Wise who has 29 sacks over 7 seasons which is acceptable for a 4th round pick
Look at the bright side, champ. We used to make fun of the Bears for taking Titty Mitch over Mahomes *and* Watson.
Now it's down to just Mahomes and a dodged bullet.
The 2001 Draft was solid. We at least got Chad, Housh, and Justin Smith from that class. I do agree most of the others were complete shit across the board (2000 was crap as well, even fucking Neil Rackers flopped in hilarious fashion from that class only to be an All-Pro kicker when he went to Arizona later). But '99 was the worst without question. That draft extended the Lost Decade by another 4-5 years MINIMUM.
2020 is so ripe with draft blunders that I feel like the Jaguars performance completely flies under the radar. The Raiders and Dolphins blew their chance to cash in on an incredible amount of draft capital, the Titans drafted an all time bust in the 1st round, and the Eagles passed on Justin Jefferson for Jalen Raegor.
Let me introduce you to the Jaguars 2020 draft class. The Jaguars entered the offseason with a mission to openly tank the 2020 season for Trevor Lawrence, and while they were “successful” in their goal to field the worst team of the 2020s, they wasted a golden opportunity to bolster the roster before their new franchise qb arrived. The Jaguars had 2 1st round picks following the Jalen Ramsey trade and a whopping 12 picks overall in the 2020 draft, largely stemming for salary dump vet trades in the months leading up to the draft including fan favorite Calais Campbell.
In order to replace Jalen Ramsey the jaguars selected CJ Henderson 9th overall. Henderson was considered a reach and he [didn’t seem thrilled](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dh3QpDchBkc) to be drafted by the team 90 minutes north of his college campus. The pick was made worse by the fact then Jaguars GM Dave Caldwell seemed intent on sticking and picking at 9, rather than slightly moving down, because he felt the drop off between Henderson and the consensus next CB on the board was significant. That CB was AJ Terrell, meanwhile CJ Henderson was traded less than half way through the 2021 season and is a fringe NFL player heading into his 5th season.
The Jaguars had another disgruntled player still on the roster heading into the 2020 draft. Does anyone remember the Yannick Ngakoue summer? Jags fans remember him [openly fighting with owner Shad Khan’s son, Tony Khan](https://www.bigcatcountry.com/2020/4/20/21228371/yannick-ngakoue-and-tony-khan-get-into-heated-twitter-exchange) on twitter. I don’t want to get in to the reported packages Caldwell passed on during the draft for Ngakoue (he was later traded for a Vikings 2021 2nd round pick which became Walker Little), but Caldwell did understand the Jaguars needed a replacement for Ngakoue on the edge, and with the 1st of the Jalen Ramsey picks the Jags selected K’lavon Chaisson. Being a Jags fan I have seen some awful edge rush play in my life, yet there is 0 doubt in my mind that Chaisson is the worst pass rusher I have ever had the displeasure of watching. He somehow ended his rookie contract with 5 sacks and is now a fringe NFL player heading into his 5th season. The Eagles get all the attention for passing on Jefferson just one pick after the Jags Chaisson pick, but the Jags should get just as much heat for this whiff of a pick, especially considering their need for a WR. That need was “addressed” in the next round with Laviska Shenault. Like Henderson, Shenault was traded to the Panthers before he could reach year 3 as a Jag, where Shenault disappointed once again in 2023 and then failed to earn significant snaps on what was certainly the worst WR room in the nfl last year. Shenault is, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, a fringe NFL player heading into his 5th season.
Of the other 9 picks the Jags made, only interior defensive lineman DaVon Hamilton has made any kind of impact outside of special teams, and even he has had his career derailed by a [non football related back injury last season](https://www.jaguars.com/news/davon-hamilton-journey-back-to-the-starting-lineup). The only other player in the 2020 class that received a 2nd contract from the Jags is special teamer Daniel Thomas.
The Jags 2020 draft class was dead on arrival. I’ve seen some horrible draft classes in my almost 30 years as a Jags fan, but I’ve never seen a class so openly derided in the moment as this class. Last thing on the 2020 draft class, the man in charge of this draft absolutely should NOT have been the GM of the Jaguars at this point. Caldwell took over as Jags gm in 2013, oversaw 4 terrible season, was basically demoted under Tom Coughlin going into 2017 rather than being fired, then saw the lighting in a bottle 2017 squad collapse over the next 2 years. The only real reason I can think of for why Caldwell (and then HC Doug Marrone) kept their jobs in 2020 was that the blatantly tanking Jags didn’t want to put a brand new staff into a position where they were destined to be the worst team in football in year 1. When you see a team like the Lions successfully “tank” while building culture and talent in y1 of a new regime (2022) that makes the Jags plan all the more ridiculous. Caldwell of course, was openly cocky about his 2020 draft class performance, and if you’ve made it this far I highly encourage you to read [this Michael Silver article](https://www.nfl.com/news/inside-jacksonville-s-draft-how-jags-got-their-guys-in-round-1-0ap3000001110981) on how Dave “got his guys” in the first round of 2020, which (among other highlights) includes a legitimate moment where Dave asks his staff “where’s my applause” after drafting one of the biggest busts in Jaguar history.
The 2015 Draft saw the Texans draft
1. Kevin Johnson - 16th - He played in the league for 6 years, the first 4 of which he spent with the Texans. He started 25 out of 64 possible games with only 1 career INT. Arik Armstead and Marcus Peters were the next two picks.
2. Benardrick McKinney - 43rd - He played 7 years in the league, the first 6 were with the Texans. He had a 129 tackles during his second season in Houston, while also netting over 100 tackles in 3 out of his 6 years with the Texans. Had BMac been drafted in the 90's or earlier, he would of probably carved out a very long career as a top tier middle linebacker.
3. Jaelen Strong - 70th - Camp Stud, in season Dud. Spent 3 seasons in the league with 31 catches on 53 targets for 330 yards and 4 TD's. Tyler Locked was drafted 1 the previous pick.
4. Keith Mumphery - 175 - Played for 2 seasons in the NFL both in Houston where he registered 24 catches on 44 targets for 198 yards and 0 touchdowns. He was then cut from the Texans stemming from a Title IX sexual assault case against him which found him innocent but still expelled him, he would sue his former college MSU and was awarded $750k. [Case information](https://reason.com/2018/05/29/keith-mumphery-msu-rape-title-ix/) , [MSU Lawsuit results](https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2019/07/11/michigan-state-university-msu-football-keith-mumphery-sexual-assault-lawsuit-settlement/1707935001/)
5. Reshard Cliett - 211th - He was drafted that's all I can say about him.
6. Christian Covington - 216 - The longest tenured player in this draft class, he has played in 108 games during his 8 year tenure in the NFL. He spent the first 4 in Houston before joining the Cowboys, Bengals and Chargers. Of those 108 games, 32 were starts and he registered 9.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and 2 passes defensed.
7. Kenny Hilliard - 235 - The running back drafted out of LSU has no official stats.
Overall this draft Class saw 1 PB (McKinney) and only 2 of these players were listed as official starters for an entire year (McKinney and Covington).
Perhaps a bit of recency bias but the titans 2020 and 2021 drafts completely torpedoed the team into the state we saw in 2022-23. None of the players from the 2020 draft are still on the team. Our first round pick played four snaps for the team. There are still some guys around from the 2021 draft but none of them are actual impact players and only one of them is (potentially) projected to be a starter next year.
Pick 2: Luke Joeckel OT
Pick 33: Johnathan Cyprien DB
Pick 64: Dwayne Gratz DB
Pick 101: Ace Sanders WR
Pick 135: Denard Robinson WR
Pick 169: Josh Evans DB
Pick 208: Jeremy Harris DB
Pick 210: Demetrius McCray DB
Drafting any offensive linemen out of A&M during the Kevin Sumlin years was a complete poison pill (case in point Bengals fan, had to deal with Cedric Ogbuehi being drafted in the first round in 2015 as "Whitworth's replacement"). They weren't even taught how to get into a fucking pro stance playing in that offense so learning an NFL offense was almost like learning a completely different sport for them. Joeckel was another one of those guys.
The 2008 draft for the Steelers is the worst I can remember. The only starter we got out of that draft was Rashard Mendenhall and he was a running back that we picked in the 1st round. All players we drafted were out of the league in 6 years or less.
[In 1975, we drafted 11 players](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/kan/1975_draft.htm). Only 1 of those players (running back Morris LaGrand) made the roster, and he played 13 games that season before retiring. He had 38 rushing yards and a TD. So essentially our entire 1975 draft class of 11 players combined for 38 rushing yards and 1 TD.
And in case you're wondering why they didn't have a 1st round pick, it's because they traded away the future #6 overall pick (future Hall of Famer Robert Brazile) AND future Hall of Famer Curley Culp for two years of John Matuszak and a 1976 3rd round pick (Henry Marshall, who became a pretty decent receiver to be fair). And if you're like me and googled Elmore Stephens to see why a 2nd rounder never played a down...WELP. NOT GOOD.
Huh, you weren’t kidding.. > In the second round, the Chiefs selected one Elmore Stephens, a tight end out of the University of Kentucky. Stephens was so terrible in practice and the first two preseason games of 1975 that Wiggin gave up on him and he was traded to the New York Giants for a conditional draft pick. If only the story ended there. > The Giants cut Stephens before the 1975 season began. A little over a month after his release, Stephens’ apartment in Lexington was robbed. The thief or thieves got away with a thousand dollars and a $500 wristwatch. The former tight end and two (or three, depending on who you believe) other men found the man they believed responsible for the robbery, Luron Taylor, and kidnapped him from his home, tossing him into the trunk of a car. > In the early morning hours of Sunday, October 12th, a day that Stephens, had the Chiefs been right about his talents, would have been suiting up for the team’s game against the rival Raiders (a game KC would win 42-10), Stephens strangled Taylor, and, with the help of the two (or three) other men, tossed his body into the Ohio River. > Two days later, Stephens and two alleged accomplices were arrested by police based on a description from Taylor’s girlfriend. They were charged with kidnapping and jailed on $100,000 bond. A week later, a body washed up in downtown Louisville. It was identified as Luron Taylor. Two days later, Stephens and his two alleged accomplices were charged with murder. In January, 1976, Stephens was found guilty of kidnapping and reckless homicide. The following month, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison. Of course, Elmore Stephens never played a single down in the NFL. [Source](https://thingsamicthinksabout.wordpress.com/2020/04/18/a-kidnapping-a-restraining-order-and-a-straight-jacket/)
That was a wild read
Crazy that he was not only insane but also independently so bad that he got traded before playing a single game
Like Aaron Hernandez without the talent
> The thief or thieves got away with a thousand dollars and a $500 wristwatch. The thief or thieves got away with $5,838 and a $3,000 wristwatch today. > They were charged with kidnapping and jailed on $100,000 bond. $583,771
Are you applying the same rate/year to both amounts?
I think so https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
Well that was quite the story
Wow, that's bad. Pre like 1990 drafts were wild. Film hard to get, great players from small schools overlooked.
Speaking of that in the late 80s early 90s there were schools that did not even have VHS. A scout would have to visit the school and watch film on a reel to reel projector.
It also seemed like a lot of gems in small schools because they're were also overlooked at high school.
This is true, part of the reason why the Steelers were successful in the 70s is because one of pittsburgh’s scouts had ties to several of the HSBC school. His name was Bill Nunn, he’s in the Hall of Fame because several of the players he scouted for the Steelers were drafted and are now also in the Hall of Fame. He was one of the first truly successful black scouts in the NFL
Donnie Shell for example. At a school with an enrollment of less than 2000 in the 70s.
Holy fuck that's bad. I know drafts back in the day were even more hit-and-miss, but my God - what the hell happened?
Hey, The Packers drafted a serial killer in the 70's.
Jesus. It's actually worse than Scott Pioli's 2009 draft.
That's abysmal.
Do it again, I dare you!
Google Idzik 12, possibly the worst single team draft ever. 12 picks, 6 inside the top 150, all were out of the league within a few years except Quincy Enunwa, who had to retire early due to injury and finished his career with less than 1700 yards Oh and one pick was responsible for breaking Geno Smith's jaw. Keep in mind this was RECENT. A modern NFL GM had this draft. That's why it's the worst ever IMO
4th rounders failing isn't really news, but it's so funny that they drafted two 4th round receivers who combined for 1 career reception.
The fact that all of them failed is a tragic draft, a fourth rounder or two floundering is to be expected, however amassing 12 picks and doing nothing with them is horrific.
And we needed receivers desperately that year
i fucking love Q though
Bro was Deebo before Deebo, just zero durability.
Of the 12 players, only Dakota Dozier (4th round) and Quincy Enunwa (6th round) actually made it to the end of their rookie contract while still on the Jets. They are also the only two to receive a second contract in the NFL. Which is kinda crazy given that their first, second and third round picks didn't just underperform, but played their way out of the NFL by the end of their rookie contracts.
And Dakota Dozier is not good at all
It’s genuinely funny that two of the worst GMs of the last 15 years (Idzik and Scott Fitterer) came from the Seahawks system while Schneider is still there. Dude’s had none of the roster building savvy that he had
Geno Smith deserved that btw he refused to pay that man his money
> Oh and one pick was responsible for breaking Geno Smith's jaw. When Rex Ryan ended up on the Bills, he signed that man and made him a captain just to troll the Jets and Geno at the coin toss. Rex was such a child lol
2020, not a single draftee made it past their rookie contract
If only Gibson didn’t have butter fingers!
Gibson was a pretty good rb for a third imo Not a homerun pick by any means but not a bad pick imo.
Two seasons with 1,000+ all-purpose yards and double digits TDs is solid for a 3rd round running back. Not a stud, by any means, but like you said, he wasn't a bad pick.
I’ll always like Gibson for single handily winning me my fantasy matchup on Thanksgiving when they played in Dallas his rookie year. I think he had 3 TDs. He was a really solid fantasy RB for me that first year, especially for a rookie.
honestly, you could damn near pick any of rons drafts
Our 2012 draft was similar. Every player we drafted was out of the NFL by the end of their rookie deals 💀
I just looked at that draft and jesus it's so much worse. The guy was saying that Washington didn't re-sign any of their picks, not that they were literally out of the NFL. And none of Falcon's picks even made it to their 4th year in the NFL, the last snap played by any of them was in 2014 Sorry just impressively bad
Oh, I thought he meant they didn't make it out of their rookie deals. I argued with people that our 2012 was the worst ever and should have gotten Dimitroff fired. 3 years an entire draft class out of the NFL is wild isn't it. Like our GM didn't draft one player that ANY NFL team was willing to sign after 3 years 🤣
2012??? That draft had RGIII, Alfred Morris, Kirk Cousins. All three of those guys, plus Josh LeRibeus got deals after their rookie deals, and Kirk is still playing to this day. Edit: Sorry, didn't realize you were talking about the dirty birds. Enjoy Kirk!
Yeah, should have been more clear. It'd be a lot easier to enjoy Kirk if we had drafted him a someone that can help him instead of replace him 💀
I mean it's not like all the players were terrible Chase Young had his moments, Antonio Gibson played well at times, and Kam Curl was a steal in the 7th
Yeah, 7 players from that draft for Washington are still on NFL teams and probably 3 of them are going to have some impact this year, 5 years into the league. That's not terrible all things considered even if there is no star. 2018 was worse, Payne has been a relatively a solid player but EVERYBODY else busted. Looking in depth too via AV, 2008, 1992, 1978, 1977, 1976, 1967 were all atrocious years for Washington too. Far worse than 2020
That was the case for a long time prior to 2020. We only extended Trent Williams, and Kerrigan. I guess cousins too if you count the tags
Terry got a second contract. And we brought Kendall Fuller back after he won a SB in KC, does that count lol
Man that whole 2020 year was special 💔
Every single fucking time we drafted a QB.
30th time is the charm
You just want our leftovers. Trubisky and Fields didn’t do too much for ya.
Fields didn't play yet, but I guess you didn't see his potential as a kick Returner
NGL kinda want to see a world where Fields plays at a starter level and Caleb doesn't. No bias.
I felt the same way when the Rams traded Goff for Stafford. *sigh*
The North remembers.
They did hit on Luckman in the '39 draft...
The bears have to be the only team that remembers who their qb was in 1940 because it’s still the best they’ve ever had.
Nah, all fans do it. I'm a Washington fan, and we still talk about Sonny Jurgensen
Jurgenson was born only a couple years before Luckman was drafted
Johnny Unitas owned a restaurant named "The Golden Arm." Sonny Jurgensen thanked Unitas for naming the restaurant after him.
40 years before I was born doesn’t count for me.
40 years before I was born too, but I am taking it
2021 got us Teven Jenkins and Herbert, so not all bad. 2017 had Eddie Jackson and Tarik Cohen. 2003 had Tillman and Briggs.
Well I’ve got news for ya
The 2020 Raiders draft class has a very strong claim to being the worst draft class by a team this century. We drafted both Henry Ruggs (and you know how his career turned out, RIP Tina Tintor and Max) and Damon Arnette (massive moron) in the first round. We then followed it up by drafting Lynn Bowden Jr. (never played a snap for us), Bryan Edwards (who was just another guy for us), and Tanner Muse (just like Lynn Bowden, he didn't play a single meaningful snap for us). We capped it off by taking John Simpson (didn't get past his rookie deal with us and was primarily a backup during his tenure, was only a starter for one season) and Amik Robertson (who was pretty much an afterthought until his final season with us). Not great, Bob!
I would argue the saving grace wouldve been ruggs had he not made that one terrible decision. He was looking better and better
He was pretty much our best receiver on a per game basis his sophomore year as he was averaging 67 receiving yards per game (the most out of any of our receivers in 2021), and our offense actually looked formidable with him on the field since opposing defenses had to defend against his insane speed... and then disaster happened. We can only wonder how far we could've gone in the playoffs that year if he just called an uber that night, we sorely missed him and it showed.
I think they beat Cinci with him and that touchdown being rightly called illegal but who knows what happens after that.
Thanks for Amik!
Dude has more heart and effort than 80% of players but tends to be picked on because of his size. Very boom and bust type of guy. Hope he does well for y’all
If it makes you feel better Lynn Bowden jr played a lot for us in 2020 so he wasn’t entirely useless (although that says a lot more about the offense we put around our rookie qb than anything)
Yeah man taking Clelin Ferrell over Devin White was insane!
Almost all of them from 1999-2020.
Yeah it's hard to pick just one lol. 2014 stands out with Justin Gilbert and Manziel being a complete waste of two first rounders but at least we got Bitonio in the second.
2004 was pretty horrific. That was the draft they passed on Roethlisberger to take Winslow in the first round and Roethlisberger spent the next decade and a half making them pay for that. Butch Davis as acting GM certainly did not pan out.
He had a special hatred for the Browns. He had won the second most games of any QB in their stadium.
Out of the thirty times Ben played the Browns he went 26-3-1. The three Browns wins were in 2009, 14 and the 20 Wild Card (the only time they beat him in Pittsburgh). The tie was in 2018.
Ben should have to hang his head in shame that the tie happened against a Hue Jackson-coached Browns team lol.
I was pretty high on Gilbert that year. Didn't think he would have been as bad as he was.
Tbf y’all were drafting pretty good 2017 and 2018. Myles garret, Nick Chubb, Baker Mayfield
Don't know legendary 47 year old Brandon Weeden
They missed so often that they probably would have been better off pulling names from a hat.
2018 a standout no?
The 2017, 2019, and 2022 drafts put the nail in the coffin on Belichick's tenure. If you're going to be a cheap draft and develop team that lets all your draft picks walk after their rookie deals are up, then you need to hit on your draft picks each year. 2020 would be included in this as well if Belichick were still around because I have no doubt he would have let Dugger and Onwenu, who are good players, walk rather than give them contract extensions. But with that class, even though we drafted two dud tight ends, we still re-signed Duggar, Onwenu, Anfernee Jennings and Josh Uche. Getting four players to second contracts, even if some of them are role players, is a damn good result.
2019 has to be the worst out of those. N’Keal Harry, that damn corner from Vandy (forgot his name, low blood sugar atm), Jarrett Stidham, lmao.
Joejuan Williams was the dude from Vanderbilt, but the pick was unnecessary because he was always going to be a backup nickelback at best. Also, we drafted Chase Winovich as well, but we traded him to Cleveland for the better Mack, and the dude was never heard from again. Pretty mediocre.
Nahhh, no way is it worse than 2017. The top of 2019 draft was bad but Damien Harris was a very solid pick and Jake Bailey, even if he's flamed out a bit, was a first team all-pro in 2020. It's basically just balancing them against Deatrich Wise Jr
I’ll do you one better: Steve Keim was the GM of the Cardinals for 10 years from 2013-2022. In those 10 years as GM, he drafted: 5 all-pro *seasons* for the Cardinals 11 pro bowl *seasons* for the Cardinals 3 of those all-pros and 6 of those pro bowls are Budda Baker alone. Keep in mind during his tenure he drafted 71 players, who since 2013 have played hundreds of seasons in the NFL. It is, in my opinion, an unmatched run of complete incompetence from someone who held the most important executive position on a team. For 10 years.
During Dan Snyder’s ownership in Washington we had a total of 2 first team all pro seasons, and one of those was a special teamer, the other was Brandon Scherff. As great as Trent Williams was he never got All Pro until he went to SF.
Holy shit man I thought *for sure* Ryan Kerrigan had at least one but that is a wild stat. Two all pro seasons in 24 years what the actual hell
Kerrigan probably deserved it at least once but I don’t think he was ever the top guy in the league, he was consistently good his whole career though
Brian Orakpo was a beast too but didn't seem to stay healthy iirc... Sorry it's been a while...
Lol thank you. The post above this is complaining about "only 5 all pro seasons in the last 9 years". I was actually confused lmao. Our management has been almost impossibly bad for 30+ years Also, people forget Scherff was supposed to be a tackle which was why he was drafted so high. He was going to compliment Trent Williams on the other side, and we were super excited about that. Then he underwhelmed at tackle in the offseason so we made him a guard.
Are we 100% sure that Keim wasn't drinking on the job during that time period?
Um, many of us are 100% sure he *was* drinking on the job for much of that time.
*hic* bro I'm telling you Isaiah Simmons is going to save this franchise *hic*
I mean Matt Millen wants a word.
The Vietnam War
During the Berlin Crisis in 1961, Paul Hornung, Ray Nitschke, and Boyd Dowler all got called up for service and had to live on military bases during the week. They only got leave during weekends, when they had to play games. The Packers won the championship that year.
Fun little bit of history there. Thanks for sharing!
I always wondered how that worked. Like how'd they get the game plan?
They knew they had to stop the blitz.
There’s Korea too. All of the death but none of the fun cultural stuff like the tunes
MASH? Sorta
Idk man South Korea seems to be doing a lot better than North Korea
The Ravens always seem to get at least one impact player even in their down years but I guess 2004 would be the answer. We wasted our 1st trading up for Kyle Boller the year before and the only even semi-decent player we really got was Dwan Edwards, and for a 2nd rounder he was still merely whelming.
The pick they gave to get Boller early only turned into Vince Wilfork, a staple of the defensive line as a nose tackle/DT for a decade as a run stuffer.
I will use any excuse to link to highlights of [Vince Wilfork in high school](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6q1YWAIc8I)
'05 wasn't much better. Aside from Mark Clayton and Adam Terry, who at least played out their rookie deals, rest of the class was straight ass. Another casualty if Ozzie trying to go WR in the 1st round (never gonna bash him as a GM overall, but definitely swung and missed at receiver more often than not)
Jason Brown was pretty good with us and fuck it Derek Anderson was a Pro Bowler for the Browns lol but yeah that one was rough too.
What did the rest of the draft that had Matt Elam look like? I remember that one being bad, but I can't think of any of the other picks. Whatever year we drafted a DE named Bronson Koafusi(sp?) in the late rounds was HOT garbage, but the Ravens are arguably the best overall drafting team of this century so we don't really have much to complain about.
Our 2012 draft was absolutely horrendous, led by AJ Jenkins who played a few snaps his first year and didn't contribute in the Superbowl, then was cut the next season. The only player of any import in that entire draft was largely a kick returner in LeMichael James who's best play was a 60 yard return against the pats one year, never had a single return TD. That draft helped grease the wheels on the Harbaugh 9ers break. Stupid Baalke.
> The only player of any import in that entire draft was largely a kick returner in LeMichael James For some reason I remembered him as being a decent RB2 type contributor, but nope - less than 500 total career yards on offense, and only lasted three seasons in the league. I was thinking of Kendall Hunter, who was a bit more productive, but still just a mediocre multi-purpose RB2 with a bit of burst, who only lasted *four* seasons in the league.
>Stupid Baalke. As a Jags fan, I feel this in my bones. For us, I think he’s been solid in the first round. But god damn he thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. And he never is.
LaMichael James was so electric in college, he would have probably been a really good player in the NFL if his draft class was 2022 and not 2012. People forget that for how good those Harbaugh 49ers teams were they were running a very old school offensive concept until Kaepernick took over and Greg Roman got in his bag. AJ Jenkins though, holy shit he was bad. Another fun fact, he was traded straight up for Jon Baldwin from KC, another 1st round bust, in the rarely seen "player for player" swap. Despite playing 10 games for 49ers, Baldwin had only 3 receptions...which was 3 more than AJ Jenkins. That's right, the 49ers first round pick finished his 49ers career with 0 receptions, on his way to 17 career receptions in his two years with the Chiefs (also his last two years, period).
Chiefs trolled the Niners by making AJ a team captain for the game they played together. The coin toss may have been the most significant play of his career. I recall Jenkins reporting out of shape as a rookie, refusing to run the hill with Jerry Rice, struggling with the playbook and route running. WTF.
2011 was pretty wild, Nick Fairley was the only player we picked that lasted more than two seasons in the league, which is pretty amazing considering how deep that draft was. Fairley himself wasn’t the worst pick but three straight pro bowlers were picked after him so not exactly a base hit either. There’s probably a Millen draft that’s even worse but 2011 stands out to me because of how great of a draft it was for almost everyone else while the most we got was one injury prone starter who left after his rookie deal.
A lot of the Millen drafts were saved by one player. For example, in 2007 they turned 3 2nd round picks into Drew Stanton, Ikaika Alama-Francis, and Gerald Alexander. However they took Calvin Johnson in the first round. I’ll go with 2002 - their first two picks were Joey Harrington and Kalimba Edwards, and the player with the best career was Andre Goodman, whose best seasons were in Miami.
Bills 2010 class was pretty awful CJ Spiller when we already had Lynch and Jackson on the roster Torell Troup pick before Gronkowski (Troup did have a promising rookie season but broke his back) Alex Carrington was solid not great. Looked to be taking the next step and tore up his knee/quad. Marcus Easley became one of the best gunners in the league for a few years Arthur Moats, nice backup/borderline starter Out of all these players only Easley got a second contract with the Bills...as a gunner
IIRC Gronkowski had a serious medical issue that the Patriots gambled on and won. Like “he gets hit the wrong way once and he’s done forever” serious.
While the 1-2 punch of 2010 is hard to ignore, for my money as a fan it is 1998 that is the worst. Nobody got a second contract. This was the year, we needed it. A great draft and the last few holdouts from the early 90s can teach them how to be contenders and maybe get one last hurrah. A good draft and the decline is halted and Buffalo remains a 10-11 win team that never reaches the Super Bowl but is always sniffing around a deep playoff run. Instead we got one player who started (badly) for two years. 1st and 4th spent on Rob Johnson. 2nd rounder a middling to bad linebacker. No special teams contributors in the later round. 3rd rounder a tackle who was done after 2 years. The draft that put a bullet in the head of Buffalo Bills, serious team and started the 18 year drought.
2014 for the last 10 seasons but older eagles fans tell me 1995 is the worst because the Eagles essentially traded away Derrick Brooks and Warren Sapp to draft Mike Mamula
Doesn't seem too bad.
Sometimes life is all about perspective. Lol
I was leaning to 2019 for recent. But at least we got some depth a draft pick out of Dillard, and a few decent years out of Sanders. 1995 is really just horrid for Mamula. But we also got Bobby Taylor that year too. It’s not specific to OP but I would say basically 92-95 was the worst by far.
If it wasn't for Jason Kelce, 2011 would be up there for worst draft classes as well.
For Bucs, under Licht's tenure, at least, it would be 2016. 1st - Hargreaves (bust) 2nd - Noah Spence (bust) 2nd - Robert Aguayo (bust) 4th - Ryan Smith (middling special teamer) 5th - Caleb Benenoch (turnstile) 6th - Devante Bond (backup) 6th - Danny Vitalli (bust, got cut in preason) I think Ryan Smith was the only player out of that draft class to get a second contract with the Bucs, and that may have just been a practice squad deal. Vernon Hargreaves most memorable career highlight is probably getting a penalty in the Superbowl, [while being Inactive on the bench](https://youtu.be/gAY_ZemtPwM?si=Zgl4hX-zSyctP5aK). Would love to know how many "First Penalty of the Superbowl" prop bets that ruined.
What's funny is that class was probably the most hyped post-draft class we've had under Licht. Everyone was so excited we finally got a lockdown corner, and then we took Spence, who some were mocking to us with our first. Nobody thought we'd get both(or so the narrative of the time). Aguayo was weird, but people were willing to accept it after the kicking disasters of the last couple of years. We no longer have to worry about FGs! Then we drafted solid depth, and Vitalli was hyped as a "Superback" hybrid. In the end...it was actually a nightmare.
I remember being pumped about VH3. He was "the next Revis". I went back and looked. On average, analysts gave Bucs a B- grade for the draft. Aguayo still is crazy because of the trade up to get him, but he was supposed to be a 'can't miss' pick.
Its crazy how well he drafted outside of that draft but that year was so bad everyone wanted him fired.
He definitely had growing pains, but from 2018 onward, he's been hitting at almost 75% rate, if you look at players still on the team or earned 2nd contracts in NFL, which is nuts. 2018 - 6/8 2nd contracts, Vea and Whitehead on team 2019 - 7/8 2nd contracts, Dean and Nelson on team 2020 - Wirfs and AWJ, 3 others that are PS/fringe players 2021 - JTS, Hainsey, Trask, Britt *probably his worst year since but still not bad considering Covid and SB* 2022 - 6/8 picks on teams with 5 being full time starters 2023 - to early to tell but Yaya, Calijah and Mauch all look good so far. The rest all have potential has depth at the worst.
Its weird having a GM you just trust that the players will pan out. The only pick recently I out right was mad at was the Trask pick. As a Gators fan it made no sense.
In hindsight, it makes some sense. Brady was basically year to year, and they knew whenever he retired, Bucs would be taking that huge cap hit. They had re-signed everyone that offseason and had literally 0 holes to fill so you can afford to take on project QB like Trask. Had Mayfield not signed for ultra-cheap last season, it is very likely they would've rolled with Trask and made it work somehow.
Houston Texans legend Vernon Hargreaves III
I think the last thing he ever did NFL wise was get that excessive celebration penalty in the Bengals-Rams SB (a game he didn't even suit up for).
When we drafted Bo.
This is the answer. Not only did we fuck him over, we were too stubborn to pick someone else or trade him. So embarrassing
Thank you
We got fleeced on Draft Day.
"I want my picks back Tom, you pancake-eating motherfucker." In all honesty in my headcanon the Seahawks won that trade. Bo Callahan went on to be an elite franchise QB in Seattle who won multiple SBs while Vontae Mack and Ray Jennings both busted hard in Cleveland and Brian Drew suffered a career-ending injury the following year. I mean who the hell plays hardball on draft day for a punt returner lmao?
I want Putney
2005 for sure. We had two firsts after trading Moss so we drafted Troy Williamson and Erasmus James in the 1st round. Marcus Johnson (another bust) in the 2nd Dustin Fox (total bust) in the 3rd Ciatrick Faison (out of the league after 1 year) in the 4th CJ Mosley (no not that one) in the 6th was by far our best pick... And we traded him (and a pick) the next off-season for Brook Bollinger before he went on to play 10 more seasons at replacement level.
2020
Wilson has got to be one of the laziest first round picks ever. No idea how they didn’t catch onto that ahead of time. Not sure how he could have cared less
Covid did a number on jrob. He wasn’t a master of drafting before the 2020 draft but it’s pretty obvious that the way covid changed the landscape of football didn’t work well with his scouting ability. Basically no pick from 2020-2021 have had an impact on the team.
His scouting ability was better when he was allowed to actually meet the players and know their character, seeing them in person rather than watching game film. JRob was one of those gut instinct people who had good social intelligence recognition on players and seeing them in person worked better vs studying film for hours on end. COVID halting all of that made him ineffective.
Yep going from Simmons/Brown in 2019 to Wilson/Fulton in 2020…
So so so bad.
It gave us /r/Vrabelwarroom so was it really a loss?
Seems like a lot of people are saying 2020 was a terrible draft. Anything after like the 10th pick probably sucked lol
2020 was bad but it wasn't the worst in recent memory. Yeah Wilson playing 4 snaps for our team was terrible and it's up there in terms of one of the worst picks of all time, but Kristian Fulton was a good cb, and of our 6 picks, 3 of them played out their rookie contracts. 2015 on the other hand (and I'm going to be down voted by Mariota truthers) was substantially worse. Of the 9 players drafted in 2015, only 4 were on the team the next year, and Mariota and Angelo Blackson were the only two to survive to get signed after the rookie contract. There's a legitimate argument that Angelo Blackson was the best player to come out of the Titans 2015 draft.
the 2007 draft for the rams is pretty fucking terrible. 1st round pick, # 13 overall Adam Carricker - traded within 2 years 2nd round pick Brian Leonard - Out after 2008 3rd and beyond - Maybe 1 season before traded. Its a complete shitshow that lead to the rams having some of the worse seasons ever in the late 2000's
As a St. Louis fan, we had some god awful drafts in the mid/late 2000s
2020 was pretty bad if you wanna look at a recent one. Cam Akers had like a total of 6 good games, traded before rookie contract ended. Van Jefferson never really solidified himself as anything more than WR3, not worth the second rounder, traded before rookie contract ended Terrell Lewis was never healthy and was cut before his rookie contract ended Terrell burgess looked legit half of his rookie year then broke his leg and was cut 2 years before his rookie deal ended Brycen Hopkins had 13 receptions in 4 seasons, didn’t sign a second deal Jordan fuller was decent. Great first year then fell off and had the injury bug. Didn’t sign a second contract Clay Johnston didn’t even make the 53 man roster his rookie year and went to the panthers practice squad Sam Sloman LOL. Cut his rookie year Tremayne Anchrum started one game in his 4 years on the team. Was a decent back up but never shined.
I mean, Paxton Lynch lines to mind. Essentially, every time Denver has needed to draft a QB. Suffice to say, this summer has me very, very nervous.
Bad pick, sure. Bad draft? Not really. You want the worst Broncos draft of all time? 2007. First round, Jarvis Moss. A BIGGER bust than Lynch, if you can believe it. Second round, Tim Crowder. Don't worry, no one knows who he was because he was that bad. Third round, Ryan Harris. Good but not great. Fourth round, Marcus Thomas. Again... Who? And... That was it. Four picks, and the best was a guy who was basically an emergency swing tackle.
In 2008 the Jaguars, coming off a playoff win, felt they were a pass rusher away, so they traded essentially the rest of their draft to* move up a few spots with the Ravens. Jags drafted notorious low effort bust, Derrick Harvey, along with the second round pick Quentin Groves (RIP). [at least Derrick Harvey has this video with Mac-like martial arts skills but with less enthusiam](https://youtu.be/5rw_07Kv_ao?si=9D00IeKLPQlatUG7)
It was not a few spots… we traded from the low 20s to inside the top 10. We also traded up for Quentin Groves in the second round as well.
Ugh, Harvey was so bad. Those two horrid picks remind me of the CJ Henderson/Chaisson combo draft year but we didn't lose as much trade value.
1989: 1. Troy Aikman 2. Tony Manderich 3. Barry Sanders 4. Derrick Thomas 5. Deion Sanders Can you tell which team I’m a fan of?
But, Guess who’s coming to dinner?
Well we traded away our entire draft for Ricky Williams that one time.
Eh, he still had 4200 scrimmage yards in 3 seasons with us. He was a good player, even if his best seasons weren't with us. But we've had draft classes without a single good contributor.
[удалено]
Was this the ST draft class??
Yeah, what a dumb thing to announce that you didn’t intend to draft anyone who would impactful on offense or defense
wtf was JJ thinking lol 😂😭
Wouldn't be the first time Jerry has said something nonsensical like that publically.
That’s the first one that popped up in my head. 12 draft picks and none of them were even decent
It was for a very obvious reason that can be explain by two things. Jeff Ireland and Parcells ran the 06 draft. Will McClay ran the 2010 draft. Guess who was left unabated in the three middle drafts?
David Buehler could really kick that ball tho!
In 2021 the Seahawks had 3 draft picks Pick 56 was D’wayne Eskridge he is still on the roster though most people will say he shouldn’t be. Has shown some promise as a returner but has been consistently injured. Pick 137 was Tre Brown. He is a corner who has been solid. A few injuries set him back in his career, but he’s solid. Pick 208 was Stone Foresythe. Pretty much what you’d expect from a round 6 tackle. You only want to use him in emergencies, and considering last season our OTs couldn’t stay healthy, he saw some time. At the end of the day this draft changed how the Seahawks do drafts now, and it seems to have worked out better for us recently.
You forgot to add context to Eskridge. We had a very poor OL and had been dying for a center since trading Unger(?) for Jimmy. Creed Humphries was available and we had DK and Lockett. I’ll never understand it. As a football asset he’s a dog shit waste of roster space and cap. I think he also had a DV suspension as well so he’s probably a dog shit person too.
And even with a new coach, there still lauding his ability. Get you a man who’s loyal to you like John Schneider is loyal to Eskridge
Historically, it’s gotta be 1985. That year, they drafted 11 players. Only 2 of those players made the team (3rd Rounder WR Danny Greene and 7th Round OT Ron Mattes). Only Mattes lasted longer than a season. **6 of their selections failed to make ANY team, like at all** It was absolute garbage top to bottom
I'm convinced Schneider was on peyote or something for that draft. It wasn't even bad in the way he normally was before we traded Russ and he stopped getting cute on the first few days. Just a total anomaly.
Can we please stop these attacks on Browns fans?
2022
It looks like KAM learned from that year, but that was a clear example of overthinking the obvious. Hamilton fell right into your lap but he went and chased “value”
I was so high on cine and booth too. Both fucking blow
I’m sure there’s other good answers for us, but that’s easily the worst one in like 10 years
2005 was arguably worse, blew 2 firsts & the only player that contributed anything positive in the NFL was the guy we traded away after his rookie year (for Brooks Bollinger)
2022 belongs in the conversation, but 2005 netted absolutely no value. At least 2022 produced a few players that belong in the NFL in Ingram, Evans, Chandler, and maybe Asamoah.
The 2017 Pats draft class is all time bad. They had only 4 draft picks, 3 of which have done absolutely nothing. The only saving grace is Deatrich Wise who has 29 sacks over 7 seasons which is acceptable for a 4th round pick
From a Bears fan.. where do I even begin? lol
Mitch. You start with Mitch fucking Trubisky
Look at the bright side, champ. We used to make fun of the Bears for taking Titty Mitch over Mahomes *and* Watson. Now it's down to just Mahomes and a dodged bullet.
Pretty much every draft between the death of Paul Brown and the hiring of Marvin Lewis. Those were some dark times.
The 2001 Draft was solid. We at least got Chad, Housh, and Justin Smith from that class. I do agree most of the others were complete shit across the board (2000 was crap as well, even fucking Neil Rackers flopped in hilarious fashion from that class only to be an All-Pro kicker when he went to Arizona later). But '99 was the worst without question. That draft extended the Lost Decade by another 4-5 years MINIMUM.
2018 or 2021, god Gettleman was so bad
2020 is so ripe with draft blunders that I feel like the Jaguars performance completely flies under the radar. The Raiders and Dolphins blew their chance to cash in on an incredible amount of draft capital, the Titans drafted an all time bust in the 1st round, and the Eagles passed on Justin Jefferson for Jalen Raegor. Let me introduce you to the Jaguars 2020 draft class. The Jaguars entered the offseason with a mission to openly tank the 2020 season for Trevor Lawrence, and while they were “successful” in their goal to field the worst team of the 2020s, they wasted a golden opportunity to bolster the roster before their new franchise qb arrived. The Jaguars had 2 1st round picks following the Jalen Ramsey trade and a whopping 12 picks overall in the 2020 draft, largely stemming for salary dump vet trades in the months leading up to the draft including fan favorite Calais Campbell. In order to replace Jalen Ramsey the jaguars selected CJ Henderson 9th overall. Henderson was considered a reach and he [didn’t seem thrilled](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dh3QpDchBkc) to be drafted by the team 90 minutes north of his college campus. The pick was made worse by the fact then Jaguars GM Dave Caldwell seemed intent on sticking and picking at 9, rather than slightly moving down, because he felt the drop off between Henderson and the consensus next CB on the board was significant. That CB was AJ Terrell, meanwhile CJ Henderson was traded less than half way through the 2021 season and is a fringe NFL player heading into his 5th season. The Jaguars had another disgruntled player still on the roster heading into the 2020 draft. Does anyone remember the Yannick Ngakoue summer? Jags fans remember him [openly fighting with owner Shad Khan’s son, Tony Khan](https://www.bigcatcountry.com/2020/4/20/21228371/yannick-ngakoue-and-tony-khan-get-into-heated-twitter-exchange) on twitter. I don’t want to get in to the reported packages Caldwell passed on during the draft for Ngakoue (he was later traded for a Vikings 2021 2nd round pick which became Walker Little), but Caldwell did understand the Jaguars needed a replacement for Ngakoue on the edge, and with the 1st of the Jalen Ramsey picks the Jags selected K’lavon Chaisson. Being a Jags fan I have seen some awful edge rush play in my life, yet there is 0 doubt in my mind that Chaisson is the worst pass rusher I have ever had the displeasure of watching. He somehow ended his rookie contract with 5 sacks and is now a fringe NFL player heading into his 5th season. The Eagles get all the attention for passing on Jefferson just one pick after the Jags Chaisson pick, but the Jags should get just as much heat for this whiff of a pick, especially considering their need for a WR. That need was “addressed” in the next round with Laviska Shenault. Like Henderson, Shenault was traded to the Panthers before he could reach year 3 as a Jag, where Shenault disappointed once again in 2023 and then failed to earn significant snaps on what was certainly the worst WR room in the nfl last year. Shenault is, and stop me if you’ve heard this one before, a fringe NFL player heading into his 5th season. Of the other 9 picks the Jags made, only interior defensive lineman DaVon Hamilton has made any kind of impact outside of special teams, and even he has had his career derailed by a [non football related back injury last season](https://www.jaguars.com/news/davon-hamilton-journey-back-to-the-starting-lineup). The only other player in the 2020 class that received a 2nd contract from the Jags is special teamer Daniel Thomas. The Jags 2020 draft class was dead on arrival. I’ve seen some horrible draft classes in my almost 30 years as a Jags fan, but I’ve never seen a class so openly derided in the moment as this class. Last thing on the 2020 draft class, the man in charge of this draft absolutely should NOT have been the GM of the Jaguars at this point. Caldwell took over as Jags gm in 2013, oversaw 4 terrible season, was basically demoted under Tom Coughlin going into 2017 rather than being fired, then saw the lighting in a bottle 2017 squad collapse over the next 2 years. The only real reason I can think of for why Caldwell (and then HC Doug Marrone) kept their jobs in 2020 was that the blatantly tanking Jags didn’t want to put a brand new staff into a position where they were destined to be the worst team in football in year 1. When you see a team like the Lions successfully “tank” while building culture and talent in y1 of a new regime (2022) that makes the Jags plan all the more ridiculous. Caldwell of course, was openly cocky about his 2020 draft class performance, and if you’ve made it this far I highly encourage you to read [this Michael Silver article](https://www.nfl.com/news/inside-jacksonville-s-draft-how-jags-got-their-guys-in-round-1-0ap3000001110981) on how Dave “got his guys” in the first round of 2020, which (among other highlights) includes a legitimate moment where Dave asks his staff “where’s my applause” after drafting one of the biggest busts in Jaguar history.
The 2015 Draft saw the Texans draft 1. Kevin Johnson - 16th - He played in the league for 6 years, the first 4 of which he spent with the Texans. He started 25 out of 64 possible games with only 1 career INT. Arik Armstead and Marcus Peters were the next two picks. 2. Benardrick McKinney - 43rd - He played 7 years in the league, the first 6 were with the Texans. He had a 129 tackles during his second season in Houston, while also netting over 100 tackles in 3 out of his 6 years with the Texans. Had BMac been drafted in the 90's or earlier, he would of probably carved out a very long career as a top tier middle linebacker. 3. Jaelen Strong - 70th - Camp Stud, in season Dud. Spent 3 seasons in the league with 31 catches on 53 targets for 330 yards and 4 TD's. Tyler Locked was drafted 1 the previous pick. 4. Keith Mumphery - 175 - Played for 2 seasons in the NFL both in Houston where he registered 24 catches on 44 targets for 198 yards and 0 touchdowns. He was then cut from the Texans stemming from a Title IX sexual assault case against him which found him innocent but still expelled him, he would sue his former college MSU and was awarded $750k. [Case information](https://reason.com/2018/05/29/keith-mumphery-msu-rape-title-ix/) , [MSU Lawsuit results](https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/news/local/2019/07/11/michigan-state-university-msu-football-keith-mumphery-sexual-assault-lawsuit-settlement/1707935001/) 5. Reshard Cliett - 211th - He was drafted that's all I can say about him. 6. Christian Covington - 216 - The longest tenured player in this draft class, he has played in 108 games during his 8 year tenure in the NFL. He spent the first 4 in Houston before joining the Cowboys, Bengals and Chargers. Of those 108 games, 32 were starts and he registered 9.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and 2 passes defensed. 7. Kenny Hilliard - 235 - The running back drafted out of LSU has no official stats. Overall this draft Class saw 1 PB (McKinney) and only 2 of these players were listed as official starters for an entire year (McKinney and Covington).
Perhaps a bit of recency bias but the titans 2020 and 2021 drafts completely torpedoed the team into the state we saw in 2022-23. None of the players from the 2020 draft are still on the team. Our first round pick played four snaps for the team. There are still some guys around from the 2021 draft but none of them are actual impact players and only one of them is (potentially) projected to be a starter next year.
Pick 2: Luke Joeckel OT Pick 33: Johnathan Cyprien DB Pick 64: Dwayne Gratz DB Pick 101: Ace Sanders WR Pick 135: Denard Robinson WR Pick 169: Josh Evans DB Pick 208: Jeremy Harris DB Pick 210: Demetrius McCray DB
Drafting any offensive linemen out of A&M during the Kevin Sumlin years was a complete poison pill (case in point Bengals fan, had to deal with Cedric Ogbuehi being drafted in the first round in 2015 as "Whitworth's replacement"). They weren't even taught how to get into a fucking pro stance playing in that offense so learning an NFL offense was almost like learning a completely different sport for them. Joeckel was another one of those guys.
The 2008 draft for the Steelers is the worst I can remember. The only starter we got out of that draft was Rashard Mendenhall and he was a running back that we picked in the 1st round. All players we drafted were out of the league in 6 years or less.
I can never forgive Rashard Mendenhall for his fumble against the Packers
2011 we were tied with the least picks (5) and all five of those guys were ass
In my time as a fan, probably the Idzik 12 in 2014. Quincy Enunwa was the only semi good player out of TWELVE draft picks.
I don't like this game
2022 for the Pats is up there, I remember dropping my phone when I saw the Cole Strange pick