The biggest NFL Draft busts do more than miss a few throws or struggle through rookie growing pains. The true NFL Draft busts warp an entire franchise plan. They swallow cap room, stall rebuilds, and erase chances to add the future stars who go somewhere else and win. This list is not about players who were simply disappointing. It is the autopsy of seven failed careers, measured by how high the pick was, how little production followed, and how wide a crater each miss left in the team’s timeline.
Why Draft Misses Hurt So Much
A premium pick is not just a number on a card. It is cap space, years of patience, and a chance at a true franchise player. When a team whiffs there, it loses the player it took and the star it passed on.
Green Bay felt that in 1989. The Packers picked Tony Mandarich second. Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and Deion Sanders went right after him. San Diego felt it in 1998. The Chargers traded up for Ryan Leaf instead of staying in place and taking a player like Charles Woodson or Fred Taylor. Those choices still hang over both franchises.
Methodology
These rankings use Pro Football Reference and major news outlets, weighing draft slot and contract size against production, team opportunity cost, and how much each name still lives in the league’s memory.
The Careers That Collapsed
7. Justin Blackmon, Jaguars NFL Draft Bust
The day Justin Blackmon broke out, it looked like the Jaguars had finally hit on a star. In Houston in 2012, the fifth overall pick went for 236 yards and turned simple throws into huge gains. For a few weeks, Jacksonville fans could see a real number one receiver taking shape.
Across 20 games, Blackmon totaled 93 catches, 1,280 yards, and 6 touchdowns. Those are solid short term numbers and proof that the talent was real. Then the league suspended him under the substance abuse policy. The suspension became indefinite. He never played another NFL snap. It is still one of the rare times a top five receiver simply vanished in his early twenties.
General manager David Caldwell said, “We have to count on not having Justin.” You almost never hear a line like that about a recent top pick. I have watched that Texans game many times. The body control, the physical catches, the way he attacked space, it all looks like the start of a long career. Knowing it stops there makes the film feel strange and heavy.
The fallout hit the entire offense. Jacksonville bounced between offensive coordinators and quarterbacks while rebuilding the receiver room again and again. From 2012 through 2020, the franchise went through four head coaches. A single miss did not cause all of that, but it sat right in the middle of a long fight to find any kind of passing identity.
6. Charles Rogers, Lions Wide Receiver
The Lions drafted Charles Rogers second in 2003 and sold him as the deep threat who would fix everything. At Michigan State he broke Randy Moss’s record with touchdown catches in 13 straight games and put up more than 2,800 receiving yards in two seasons. Detroit thought it was getting that same highlight machine on Sundays.
The injuries hit almost right away. Rogers started well as a rookie, then broke his collarbone in practice after 5 games. On the first series of the next season he broke the same bone again. A suspension for violating the substance abuse policy followed. His career ended with 36 catches, 440 yards, and 4 touchdowns across 15 games. All while Andre Johnson, taken a few picks later, turned into a star in Houston.
Former general manager Matt Millen said, “Charles had it. He had the ability to take the top off any coverage.” That is the tough part. Everyone around the team believed in the talent. Off the field, painkiller issues and court fights over bonus money turned the story darker. Rogers’ death at 38 only deepened the sense that Detroit lost more than a player. It lost a local hero who never got the career he seemed built for.
His bust came to define how people talk about the Millen era. When fans in Detroit bring up that time, they do not just mention records. They talk about draft nights where the wrong choice felt obvious in hindsight, and Rogers is usually the first name in that conversation.
5. Trent Richardson, Browns Running Back
Cleveland took Trent Richardson third in 2012 to give the franchise a tough runner to build around. Early on it seemed fine. He scored 12 total touchdowns as a rookie and looked strong between the tackles. For a team desperate for an identity, that mattered.
Then the deeper numbers started to define him. Across 3 seasons and 614 carries, split between 256 in Cleveland and 358 in Indianapolis, Richardson ran for 2,032 yards and 17 rushing touchdowns. His average sat at 3.3 yards per attempt. In a league where many starters hover near 4.3, that gap is huge. Indianapolis gave him 29 games and got 977 rushing yards. That is replacement level work for the cost of a first round pick.
Before the draft, Jim Brown said, “I said he looked like an ordinary back.” Richardson said he had big shoes to fill and treated it like a challenge. You could see that he wanted to be great. The problem is the tape never matched the investment. The vision of a workhorse who would carry two franchises never showed up on Sundays.
A fan said, “It felt like two teams lost the same trade.” That is about right. Cleveland spent a very high pick at a position where you have to be special to justify it. Indianapolis then sent a first rounder to chase a quick fix. Both clubs lost seasons, money, and better paths forward.
4. Akili Smith, Bengals NFL Draft Bust
Akili Smith is what happens when a team falls in love with a flash instead of a full picture. In 1999 he rocketed up boards after one big year at Oregon. Cincinnati took him third. The Bengals turned away trade offers and passed on Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, and Champ Bailey. They thought they had found their long term quarterback.
The pro numbers landed with a thud. Smith finished with 5 touchdown passes, 13 interceptions, and a completion rate under 47 percent. His passer rating sat at 52.8. He started 17 games and won only 3 of them. Those numbers would be rough for a late pick. For a quarterback taken third, they put him near the bottom of any list in the modern era.
The contract drama made it worse. Smith held out for most of training camp before signing a seven year deal with a signing bonus over 10 million dollars. Coaches later questioned his preparation. Offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said Smith was not as diligent with film and the playbook as he needed to be. In a league that expects the quarterback to live at the facility, that is fatal.
Bengals fans still talk about that pick with a tired kind of anger. They know the team walked away from McNabb and Culpepper to make this bet. When Carson Palmer finally arrived, it felt like a second chance at the plan that Smith was supposed to start.
3. Tony Mandarich, Packers Tackle
Tony Mandarich sits at the center of maybe the most famous draft top five ever. The Packers took him second in 1989. The next three names were Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas, and Deion Sanders. Green Bay was convinced Mandarich was a generational lineman. The rest of the league now treats his name as a lesson.
On paper, he lasted seven seasons. Mandarich played 86 games and started 63 for the Packers and Colts. He never made a Pro Bowl. He never turned into the dominant pass protector the hype suggested. When you compare that to the careers of the three players picked after him, his resume looks tiny.
Years later he spoke openly about his life at that time. Mandarich admitted heavy steroid use in college and said he abused painkillers during his early pro seasons. In one interview he said, “I absolutely hated myself.” That line hits hard. It turns his story from a simple punch line into something closer to a cautionary tale about pressure and self destruction.
Older Packers fans still talk about that draft with a kind of quiet regret. They picture Barry Sanders in green and gold and know how different things might have looked. Instead, Mandarich gave them average play, a gap in the roster, and a ghost that still gets mentioned every time the team sits near the top of the board.
2. Ryan Leaf, Chargers Quarterback
Ryan Leaf entered the league as the other choice in a two man race. Peyton Manning went first to the Colts. The Chargers traded up for Leaf at number two and thought they were getting a similar level of talent with a bigger arm and more edge. For some scouts, he was the better prospect.
The stat line tells a very different story. Leaf threw 14 touchdowns and 36 interceptions. He completed about 48 percent of his passes and finished with a passer rating around 50. As a starter he went 4 and 17. Put that next to Manning’s career, and you get one of the biggest gaps between back to back picks in draft history.
The off field moments were just as bad. Leaf infamously screamed at a reporter in the locker room. The clip ran on national shows and cemented his reputation as out of control. He has since talked about that time and said he knows he will always be linked to the phrase “biggest draft bust.” You can hear in his voice that he feels that weight every day.
For Chargers fans, his name never really left the room. A fan said, “Any time we talk about taking a quarterback high, someone says Leaf.” That is how deep this cut runs. The franchise did not just miss once. It had to spend years rebuilding trust, both inside its own locker room and with its supporters.
1. JaMarcus Russell, Raiders NFL Draft Bust
JaMarcus Russell is the draft story every general manager knows by heart. At LSU he had the size, the arm, and that Sugar Bowl demolition of Notre Dame that played on television for months. In 2007, the Raiders took him first. He was supposed to be the player who brought them back to relevance.
After a long holdout, Russell signed a six year contract worth around 61 million dollars, with an estimated 32 to 39 million guaranteed. Across three seasons he threw for 4,083 yards with 18 touchdowns and 23 interceptions. He completed a little more than half his passes and posted a passer rating in the mid sixties. He went 7 and 18 as a starter. Then he was gone. For that level of draft capital and money, there is still nothing quite like that combination of cost and performance.
When the deal finally got done, Russell said, “I am happy that everything is finally over and I get a chance to be a football player again.” It never really worked out that way. Coaches, worried he was not watching film, reportedly sent him home with blank tapes labeled as game cut ups. When he came back and talked about blitz looks that did not exist, whatever trust remained vanished.
Even now, Raiders fans talk about that time with mixed feelings. They are angry at a front office that put a raw passer into chaos, with constant coaching changes and little structure. They also see a young man who collected roughly 39 million in guarantees and still became the go to reference for failure. For a number one pick in that salary neighborhood, with such a short and rough career, Russell remains the benchmark that every struggling young quarterback gets compared to.
The Lingering Question
Rookie contracts are smaller now. Teams trade down more. They talk more about character, support systems, and mental health. The fear of another JaMarcus Russell or Ryan Leaf still sits there anyway.
You can feel it every draft night when the camera cuts to a general manager’s face as the clock winds down. You can feel it in fan bases that know one wrong choice can erase three years of progress. A fan commented, “We all want the next star, but nobody wants to be the next punch line,” and that might be the most honest line about the draft there is.
So when the commissioner steps to the microphone next April and reads the first name, the question will sit in the air again. Is this the start of a franchise career or the next NFL Draft bust we will still talk about a decade from now.
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