NFL Draft: Every team’s biggest first round bust of last ten years

Robert Griffin III was Washington’s biggest draft bust in franchise history because of his performance and because of the king’s ransom the team paid for his services.

Before I dive into the gruesome details of Robert Griffin’s fall from grace in Washington it bears mentioning that the whole experience probably would not have been so brutally painful, for everyone involved, had Griffin not come firing out of the gates like a lock for the Hall of Fame.

The 2012 NFL Rookie of the Year was the first QB in NFL history to be named NFL Rookie of the Week after his very first professional game.

Griffin would go on to be named the NFL Rookie of the Week three times during the 2012 season. He would also become the youngest passer in league history to achieve a perfect passer rating of 158.3. He also posted the highest passer rating by a rookie, 102.4, and the highest TD to Interception ratio by a rookie, 4:1.

Griffin’s subsequent seasons saw his statistics plummet. He threw 20 TDs in 2012, 16 in 2013, and then four in 2014 before being inactive for every game in 2015.  He would be signed by the Browns in 2016 before being out of football altogether in 2017. He signed with the Ravens in 2018 and just as his career seemed to have a flicker of a chance to be rekindled the Ravens drafted the most athletic quarterback the NFL has seen since Michael Vick.

Sadly, not one player remains on the Redskins roster from that cursed 2012 draft. To prolong the misery, without a first round pick in 2013, the first player selected by Washington was David Amerson. Suffering the same fate in 2014 the Redskins had to wait until the second round to make their first selection – Trent Murphy. Trent of course is no longer with the team. The first round pick the Redskins forfeited that year was the second overall pick.

Griffin’s poor play following his rookie year was disappointing. But, it was the damage done by those lost first rounders that makes Robert Griffin III the biggest draft bust of the last ten years..