Top NFL Draft Misfires Over the Past 10 Years
By Erik Lambert
Figuring out why teams are bad can usually be traced to a huge misfire during a previous NFL draft. Here are just some of the biggest over the past decade.
2004
Team: Buffalo Bills
Pick: J.P. Losman (22nd overall)
After seeing the frenzy of quarterbacks go early like Eli Manning, Philip Rivers and Ben Roethlisberger, it’s easy to understand why the Buffalo Bills were anxious to jump into the fray as well. Unfortunately they badly misfired on J.P. Losman out of Tulane. In five seasons he only started all 16 games once and never topped 20 touchdowns. He was out of Buffalo by age 27 and out of the league by 30.
2005
Team: Chicago Bears
Pick: Cedric Benson (4th overall)
The maddening part of this pick for Chicago Bears fans isn’t so much that they missed out on a wealth of other talents like DeMarcus Ware and Antrel Rolle. It was the fact they took Cedric Benson when they really didn’t need a running back, what with capable veteran Thomas Jones already in place. Instead they went for a luxury and ended up getting burned. Benson proved injury-prone and a problem off the field and was gone by 2009.
2006
Team: St. Louis Rams
Pick: Tye Hill (15th overall)
It’s always a bad sign when people don’t even remember a guy being picked. Tye Hill went in the top half of the 1st round to a team that needed help on defense. After a promising rookie year with three interceptions, he fell off in a big way and was out of the NFL by age 28.
2007
Team: Oakland Raiders
Pick: JaMarcus Russell (1st overall)
Not much needs to be said about this pick that hasn’t already been said over and over. The Oakland Raiders needed a quarterback but the 2007 crop was not good. Like at all. Yet they fell in love with the physical freak of nature that JaMarcus Russell was coming out of LSU, not bother to evaluate whether he had the typical traits associated with an actual quarterback. In the end the team was set back year by this blunder.
2008
Team: New York Jets
Pick: Vernon Gholston (6th overall)
The ceiling on this guy was supposed to be out of this world. Vernon Gholston was the next great pass rusher for the New York Jets. All he needed was a little guidance. Yet even when the team brought in Rex Ryan it proved to do nothing because they neglected one fact. Gholston was more of an athlete than a football player. He never registered a single sack in three seasons.
2009
Team: Oakland Raiders
Pick: Darrius Heyward-Bey (7th overall)
Al Davis was always obsessed with speed in his wide receivers so it made sense that he became enamored with Darrius Heyward-Bey in 2009. The guy ran a 4.27 40-yard dash at the combine. However, unlike previous decades Davis had lost his ability to judge talent. As fast as Bey was, he was a mediocre receiver with injury problems and inconsistent hands.
2010
Team: Jacksonville Jaguars
Pick: Tyson Alualu (10th overall)
It’s not so much that defensive lineman Tyson Alualu was a bad player when the Jacksonville Jaguars took him in 2010. The problem was he wasn’t worth the 10th overall pick. While he did prove a durable and hard working player on the field who could get the occasional sack, he isn’t the dominant pass rusher the Jags had hoped for.
2011
Team: Minnesota Vikings
Pick: Christian Ponder (12th overall)
It wasn’t just that the Minnesota Vikings took a quarterback in a 2011 class that proved awfully subpar. It was the fact they took Christian Ponder whom many analysts didn’t see going in the 1st round. They felt he had a lot of flaws to his game that need refining and questioned whether he could elevate a team like a top pick should. Four years later the Vikings picked up another quarterback, so it’s clear that experiment didn’t pan out.