NFL Draft: Every team’s biggest first round bust of last ten years
2016, 26th overall. . Paxton Lynch. . team. 45.
The Denver Broncos had just won Super Bowl 50, and Peyton Manning had just retired from professional football.
The Broncos’ four-year succession plan for Manning showed signs of promise in ‘relief duty’, but Brock Osweiler spurned Denver for the Houston Texans out of spite for being benched in a week 17 regular season game.
The Broncos proceeded to lure Colin Kaepernick out of San Francisco and had even agreed to a trade to send the former second-round pick to the Mile High City if he would agree to a $4.9 million pay cut.
Live Feed
Arrowhead Addict
The deal for Kaepernick fizzled, and the Broncos were left with very few options, picking at the back end of a draft that included Carson Wentz and Jared Goff.
Paxton Lynch was pretty much the consensus number three behind those guys, and John Elway obviously agreed.
The Broncos moved up five spots in the first round to select Lynch with other teams like Dallas and Kansas City in pursuit.
Lynch looked good his rookie preseason and even showed some signs of development in a couple of regular season appearances.
In 2017, however, Lynch’s play dropped off considerably.
As a matter of fact, Lynch has seemingly regressed every time he’s stepped onto the field as a professional, almost in order of appearance.
He was beaten in a competition for the starting job in 2017 by Trevor Siemian, and in 2018 has lost the backup job to Chad Kelly.
Lynch’s regression is staggering for a former first-round pick, but it’s hard to fault the Broncos for selecting him when they did, where they did, given their situation.
If he is to revive his NFL career, it will likely be somewhere other than Denver.