The Different Flavors of Draft Bust
The Trey Lance situation brought a deep pondering I’ve had for years to the surface. The concept of the draft bust. We use that term pretty liberally to describe pretty much any player that doesn’t live up to expectations. I don’t know if that’s entirely fair, because there are a lot of different ways a player can fail to meet those expectations. As stated many times, I firmly believe that most, if not all, players can succeed in the NFL if they go to the proper environment. But those are very hard parameters to meet, and for the most part, it doesn’t happen. I’m sure in another timeline Tom Brady got taken by the Jets or something and he never got the chance he did in New England. Maybe in another universe, Tony Mandarich became the greatest lineman of all time. So many factors go into a career and not all of them are the player’s fault. But the player absolutely plays a part in his own destiny.
I’ve split the idea of the draft bust as such. Now, not every player neatly fits a single category, most fit 2 or more, but primarily seem to fit one best, and Im sure with a bit of brainstorming you could probably narrow down a few more categories or subcategories. But over my many years, this is what I tend to notice. I’ll start with the ones that seem least like the player’s fault.
INJURY RIDDLED
– You really can’t call most injuries the fault of the player. Maybe they got hurt due to poor conditioning or whatever but as far as I’m concerned, injuries should pretty much never be blamed on the player. Especially in a sport like football, unless your dumb ass is Gus Ferotte. Ironically, the poster boy for me whenever this category comes to mind is actually an NBA player: Greg Oden. First overall pick by the Portland Trail Blazers over Kevin Durant, Oden was actually pretty damn good at basketball. He was also made of glass. Oden gets more flack as a monumental draft bust than he honestly should. He could have been great if he could stay healthy. For an actual football example, Ki-Jana Carter is maybe the poster boy. Carter was a stud runningback drafted by the Bengals who tore his knee up in the preseason of his rookie year and just never was good again. Injuries to high draft picks are some of the most depressing things. You feel bad for everyone involved. The player has his dreams dashed. The fanbase is robbed of seeing the new guy. The team is robbed of a potential way out of the gutter, and nobody is to blame. It just sucks.
POOR FIT
-This is a guy who clearly just was the wrong player for the wrong situation, or used poorly by bad coaches. Frequently the player doesn’t live up to expectations but is also being asked to play the wrong spot or just doesn’t fit. This is how I segue into Vernon Gholston, a defensive end for Ohio State who put up freakish combine numbers. He was drafted by Eric Mangini, who tried to make him play outside linebacker in a 3-4 scheme. He sucked. He was an absolute non-entity on the field. While Gholston certainly fell far below expectations and he could have probably done a better job adjusting (Mathias Kiwanuka of the Giants faced a similar switch, but he was at least functional as a linebacker), it’s hard not to look at Gholston and wonder why the Jets drafted him to play the position he wasn’t known for. Time after time, bad NFL coaches face the consequences of their hubris when they try to fit a square peg in a round scheme.
ATHLETIC DUMBASS
-This is a guy who has all the physical gifts in the world but just can’t handle the challenge of the NFL. In college if you are physically gifted enough you can potentially just out-athlete your competition, especially if you are in a smaller program. In the NFL, well, everyone is good. Everyone is in the top percentile of their positions. You gotta adjust. Some cannot. I’m not actually sure how well this fits, but for whatever reason when I think of players like this, I think of Aaron Curry. Also Vernon Gholston but I used him already. Curry was a can’t miss prospect at the time and yet all he did was miss. Funny story, he’s now the linebackers coach for the Steelers! Those who cant do, teach, etc etc.
THE UNDERACHIEVER
Sometimes dudes just aren’t that good or never should have been drafted so highly in the first place. Trent Richardson? Just…couldn’t do it. Kevin White? So highly touted, never did jack shit. A lot of QBs fit this category but usually not quite through fault of their own, more just the expectations of the position and how the position tends to get overdrafted anyway. David Carr? Tim Couch? Akili Smith? Matt Leinart? Hell, Reggie Bush had a decent career by NFL standards but considering the hype he had coming out of school people still label him a bust. Tebow? Poor Teebs had the weight of the world on his shoulders but he just wasn’t cut out for the NFL game.
BAD ATTITUDE
In my opinion, these are the true busts. The ones who seem to take my belief that anyone could succeed like a personal attack and sabotage everything. They aren’t just underachievers, they are dipshits when they fail. Ryan Leaf is our poster boy here. He wasn’t just bad. He was obnoxious, he was rude, he was a dipshit. Jamarcus Russell? Guy is a good fit for athletic dumbass but he did himself no favors by being incredibly lazy. Johnny Manziel? That guy needed discipline in his life more than anyone. Tony Mandarich was a roided headcase. Maybe the most low-key new guy in this category is offensive tackle Isaiah Wilson. Drafted late in the first out of Georgia by the Titans, Wilson played roughly 4 snaps…in his entire career. He spent multiple stints in Covid protocol, got arrested, a DUI, and then publicly feuded with the Titans, who shipped him to Miami for a 7th round pick. Wilson was cut 3 days later. He spent 2021 on the Giants practice squad. He hasn’t sniffed a football since.
Some people use the term bust to pretty much represent anyone who doesn’t meet expectations of where they were picked but I never found that fair. Expectations are often outrageous and NFL careers are surprisingly short and uneventful on average. I always felt that a bust is a special label, one that should be reserved for true tragedies. The Outliers. It isn’t enough to just underperform, to be a bust you have to shock people by not just underperforming but doing so spectacularly. To be a bust is to have completely wasted everyone’s time and money. To make everyone who got excited for you regret it. To make it so that a team could have rostered a mediocre player in your stead and gotten more from them. A true bust puts a nasty little taste in your mouth when you think about how your team blew it.
Who do you think is unfairly labeled a bust, or actually should be a better-known bust? Any other types of busts I didn’t really touch on? The player who’s busting personally shocked you the most?
Malik McDowell comes to mind. We drafted him 35th overall, he gets hurt in an ATV accident, gets arrested twice, and never played a single down for the Seahawks. He’s been arrested multiple times since, including for assaulting a cop while naked outside a preschool. Makes Aaron Curry look like Bobby Wagner.
Justin Blackmon (Jags WR, I think 2012) perfectly fits athletic dumbass.
Came here to say he was the perfect “Bad Attitude” fit. He never wanted to play for Jags.
He also had a major alcohol problem IIRC.
How many of these fit Lance?
Injury riddled: He broke his leg during the year that was supposed to be his year. I guess?
Poor Fit: Maybe a little until you consider that Shanahan likely has a portion of his playbook that he saved for someone like Lance.
Athletic Dumbass: Lance seems like a smart dude, just very unlucky. He’s a bit of an athletic ball of clay still and that’s just kinda how he was in college.
The underachiever: this one seems most fitting I suppose. But I feel like most of it isn’t really his fault.
Bad attitude: this one is the least likely in my eyes. According to everyone I hear from in interviews or press conferences he’s a good dude who works hard.
I think it’s too early to consider him a true bust. But I guess the conversation needs to be had.
I’d put Lance in Injury/Poor Fit myself. He doesn’t really fit the others. He might be an athletic dumbass but we wont be able to tell until he plays more games
Much like INTs, I think the “Bust” stat needs to officially be split to reflect the blame, as you mentioned, Dave. Maybe call it a BUST if the team screwed the pooch, and something like a MELTDOWN if it was the player who screwed the pooch. If unknown, or possibly both, then combine it all into a BUSTED MELTDOWN.
Because on paper, as you described it, Dave, I feel like Lance should be at least partially filed into “Underachiever,” based SOLELY on the expectations that come with a team dumping THREE first rounders to get him. It almost doesn’t matter what he does in his career, his drafting is most likely going to be considered a failure.
Giving up THREE first rounders for a guy and then bailing on him after a whopping 31(!!!!) pass attempts (194 yds w/ 0TD 1INT) makes this the bustiest bust that ever busted. And NONE of it is his fault. But as a complete transaction – bearing in mind I don’t follow drafts much and will probably be proven wrong in short order – this is possibly the most disastrous draft exchange I can think of in recent memory. THREE first rounders and change for 194yds and 0 TDs. That is BAAAAAAD. And if Lance ends up becoming GOOD in Dallas and/or Purdy never exceeds Kirk Cousins 2.0, then it actually only serves to make the exchange for SF EVEN WORSE.
Trey Lance is currently ahead of Chase Daniels “dollars per Throw” record although I’m not sure that will hold. (might be fun comic). It kinda seems like Lance is what happens when “Luck” is your dump stat.
Using only his 2022 stats is a little misleading. For his entire 9ers career, he played in 8 games, starting 4 of them. He attempted 102 passes, completing 54.9%, for 797 yards, 5 TDs, 3 INTs, and a passer rating of 84.5. Also, one of the two games he started in 2022 was played in a literal monsoon, and in the other, he led them on a FG drive, and again into FG territory before getting injured.
Still absolutely a bust, at least so far, but I think we should be a little more fair to the guy.
Personally, I think the 9ers maybe gave up on him a little early, because it is certainly possible that Brock Purdy turns back into a pumpkin, like what happened after the one year that Case Keenum was actually good. But maybe the change of scenery was long overdue.
I apologize for that, I don’t know why, but I keep thinking he was drafted last year, so in my mind, last year’s stats were all of his stats. I didn’t intend to mislead like that. UGH, and people have probably moved on, but for anyone coming back, ignore the stat portion of what I said above, lol.
How about those with respectable careers who only look like a bust because of who was taken later?
Man, that makes me think of Brandon Graham. For so many years there was a portion of the Eagles fanbase who would complain the team drafted him over Earl Thomas. It looks stupid today, but this argument only died after the Legion of Boom decline and our SB win
This is basically the Bills picking Marcell Dareus in the 2011 Draft ahead of Julio Jones, Pat Peterson, Cam Jordan, etc. He had a solid career with us with about 35 sacks and about 300 tackles, but there’s always a sense that we missed out on some better prizes.
That doesn’t make them busts though. You’re a bust based on how much you underachieve relative to where you were picked not based on how much better the people selected after you did.
I don’t think that could be considered a bust. No one called Sam Bowie a bust just because he was picked before Michael Jordan.
There is zero question that Ryan Leaf belongs on this list. But I always feel a little bad when I see it, because of how much he’s turned his life around now. If you haven’t heard his story, check out his podcast or any of his appearances on Dan Patrick’s show. He doesn’t make any excuses for how bad he was as a player, or as a person, in his NFL days – or how low he sunk afterwards. But the redemption story is just as spectacular.
I feel similarly about Jamarcus Russell. He went through some heavy shit right after he was drafted. He didn’t do himself any favors with how he decided to cope, but the narrative that he’s just a lazy waste of talent who didn’t want to put the work in is completely unfair.
I feel similarly about Jamarcus Russell. Dude was the bustiest bust who ever busted, and he absolutely brought it on himself with his practice habits and drug use, but… he went through some heavy shit right after he was drafted. He had no support structure and didn’t know any healthy coping mechanisms. The narrative that he’s just lazy and entitled is unfair.
Just to play devil’s advocate here… Russell was confirmed to have fallen asleep in meetings and went AWOL for team activities. I’m not sure if the blank dvd story was ever confirmed, where the Raiders supposedly gave him dvds labeled ‘gameplans,’ but in reality were blank… and when asked, Russell said they looked good to him.
He certainly took a lot of crap, and I’m open to feeling some sympathy for the guy, but taken as a whole, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to say he was “neither invested nor interested in putting forth the effort required to meet the minimum satisfactory grade of his vocational position.” (i.e., lazy)
He definitely did those things. Or, in this case, failed to do those things. What transpired though was not solely because he lacked the character to put in the effort. The two men that had guided his life up until that point both died suddenly in a short time span. He then became addicted to drugs. While in this vulnerable position he was convinced by his agent to hold out of camp for more money. He then, still in a terrible situation emotionally, had to play for a coach who didn’t like him, and openly belittled him in front of the team.
Jamarcus Russell was a bust, but he wasn’t some indolent moron who refused to care. He was a young man who made every wrong decision when life suddenly got very, very difficult.
Would Jeff George go under the “Bad Attitude” label? He did stick around for years, but I still consider him a bust.
You could maybe add “Combine Climber” or “Workout Warrior” to the list. Not exactly the same thing as the physically gifted moron, the workout warrior is a guy whose complete lack of college production gets completely forgotten the second front offices get an official 40 time. He’s a guy with impressive measurables to drool over, but doesn’t actually know how to play football. Think Darius Heyward-Bey.
The poster child for this, of course, is Mike Mamula. Now, as an actual player, ignoring draft position, he was decent. Not great, not outstanding, but certainly nowhere near bust status. It wasn’t like he couldn’t play at all, or didn’t try hard, etc.
The problem, though, is that his Combine scores had the Eagles spellbound, and they drafted him at #7 overall, despite him probably being a late-2nd/early-3rd rated talent initially. So, he was a “bust”, but only because he was forced into it. (So, I guess, this could be a sub-category of “Poor Fit” – a player asked to do more than their talent or ability allows)
For Athletic Dumbass my first thought went to Ronald Ollie since I watched Last Chance U. He was so physically gifted, but equally lazy. It was infuriating to see how many chances he got and he just never realized that he was getting a 79th opportunity when so many around him were desperately trying to make their 2nd or 3rd work out. He gets a chance in the Raiders Training camp and gives up spending his time on the sideline.
Dave, as a fellow Giants fan, where do you place Erick Flowers?
Probably in the Poor Fit/Underachiever category. He was a raw talent that wasn’t ready when he came out, we shifted him around, and he just wasn’t good. He was okay once he left. Engram could be another case where he wasn’t great, just not what we needed him to be, and found success esleware
“Athletic Dumbass” may be forever linked with “Brian Bosworth”. (Technically, he was selected in a supplemental draft for players that became draft eligible after the yearly draft, but he was also given a record-setting contract for a rookie at that time, so it counts.)
The guy was supremely gifted in college, still one of the best linebackers ever to play. But he also was the most proto-typical meathead you could imagine – boastful to annoyance, got kicked out of college for both steroids use AND openly criticizing the NCAA on a National Bowl Game, spent more time doing media and PR than actually practicing after being drafted, and famously trash-talked Bo Jackson (which didn’t end up well).
His career ended after a couple of years due to a shoulder injury, but he wasn’t going to stick around much longer than that, anyway.
Bosworth felt like a mix of Injury Riddled and Dumbass to me. He was already falling apart by the time he hit the NFL but he was also a big dumb moron
David Carr deserves to be in “Poor Fit”, not “Underachiever”. It’s hard to truly know what he could have been, had he had any semblance of an offensive line.
During his rookie season, he was sacked an NFL record 76 times, which, in perspective, is 4.75 sacks a game. The legendary 1984 Bears have the record for most sacks by a team in a season, with 72. This means that David Carr’s OL was so awful, it was more of a failure than the (arguably) greatest defense of all time was great.
Over his 6 year career with the Texans, David was sacked an average of 3.28 times per game, which is insane. Extrapolated over a 17 game season, that would be 55.7 sacks. In 2022, only the Eagles defense had more sacks than 55.7, with 70 (another legendary performance). While that would only place 5th in 2022’s sacks allowed leaders, keep 2 things in mind: 3 of the teams ranking worse than the Texans threw the ball over 100 more times than David’s seasonal average; and the Texans managed to keep this pace up for six consecutive seasons.
David Carr was a broken shell of a player, not due to his own failings (well, partially due to his own failings), but due to the failings of his OL. By the middle of his 3rd season, he was spooked beyond repair. Holding the #1 and #3 all-time sack leading seasons is truly a team stat, which speaks more to the organization at the time than it does to the sacrificial meatbag they snapped the ball to.
Fun fact: the Boz starred in a 1991 B-movie called Stone Cold, where he played a Dirty-Harry-esque MAVERICK COP who PLAYS BY HIS OWN RULES. The twist comes with the ending, where Boz is tasked with resolving a hostage situation where several judges are held at gunpoint–which he *colossally fucks up, getting every single judge killed.* The movie ends with Boz handing his service weapon over to the chief and staggering away, covered in blood, with a thousand-yard stare on his face.
The parallels to his NFL career are left as an exercise for the reader.
Meant to reply to Dave with this. Guess I missed.
I need to watch this movie now. Thanks for pointing it out!
I think you can add RG3 as an prime example of Injury Riddled, or “Career Derailing Injury”.
A Heisman Trophy winner who broke all sorts of records, helped made Baylor a winning program again, gets drafted by the Washington Football Team formerly known as the Redskins and led them to a division title, winning Pro Bowl and RoTY honors. Things are looking up for the Redskins, it seems Snyder might actually luck his way into a Super Bowl one day…and then RG3 tore his ACL in the playoffs.
It all went downhill from there.
RG3 may also fall under “poor fit,” only because I have to wonder how his career may have gone if he didn’t have to play on the horrible turf of FedEx Field. Those field conditions were just trash by the time the postseason came around.
It really doesn’t help that the NFL *still* doesn’t have any kind of developmental league where marginal players can have a chance to build up their skills without as much pressure. Currently the procedure seems to be if you graduate from college and don’t immediately make a 53-man roster it’s fuck you for the rest of your life (CFL/XFL/USFL/whatever arena bullshit is happening this week notwithstanding)
Very true, although I think the injury risk so bad with football it’s hard to have a developmental league.
Not just injury risk, but true NFL-level athleticism just doesn’t last that long. The only way guys like Tom Brady and Aaron Donald are able to keep it up is A) they’re technique and football IQ are high enough to make up for it B) They’re able to spend A SHIT TON of money on all kinds of routines/nutritionalists/personal trainers/procedures that help preserve their athleticism. A G league just doesn’t have that kind of money to be able to keep guys who DO develop lasting long enough to make any kind of impact in the NFL. Also, consider how bad your team’s 3rd string Left Guard is. Now consider the fact that they BEAT OUT a number of other replacement level players brought in. There’s a lot of bad football players in the NFL who DO have the kind of resources to attempt to improve, there’s even more who are worse and can’t make the cut. There just aren’t enough players with potential to fill up another league, even if it’s only 10 teams.
Like you said, some belong in multiple categories and I put Johnny Manziel also in the Athletic Dumbass category. He could do whatever he wanted and his own skills got him by in college.
Is this the fewest tags you’ve ever used in a comic I wonder
Also fuck kelvin benjamin
Recent “Bad Attitude” case I can think of recent is Zach Wilson. Probably still has the starting job if he doesn’t say something stupid to the media.
Kinda wonder if Kyler Murray ends up on this list. Seems it wasn’t that long ago people were comparing him to Herbert.
I dunno where Jeff Okudah fits in here, maybe injury? Drafted by someone who had no interest in developing him, then lots of injury time, and finally he’s getting outshone by guys who are not playing 3+ years of catch-up at the position. Hopefully the trade to the Falcons works out for him. You know, when he comes off injury
I always wonder how many “Poor Fit” guys would actually thrive if they were in other systems sooner. The NFL moves on so quickly that many of these guys with legitimate talent never get the chance to work with a coach/system that could actually hone them into something good.
I always think of Cordarelle Patterson. As a Vikings fan I was so excited when we drafted him. We knew he was raw, but he had Percy Harvin wiggle in a Randy Moss body. He never really put it together. He was a dynamite return man (one of the best in NFL history IMO) but clearly wasn’t a worthy receiver. Mike Zimmer was never going to be the kind of coach to be able to get the best out of CP, but it seemed like he was destined for mediocrity after stints with MANY teams. Turns out he was a Running Back all along! How great could he have been if drafted into a system that thought about using him in that capacity? Because he clearly wasn’t going to start there over Adrian Peterson! How many stars have we lost due to poor timing?
There’s one more type that’s missing here, and it’s mostly reserved for QBs (although in earlier eras of football there would have been more non-QB examples): The guy who’s drafted to save the coach/GM’s job, who struggles as a rookie and the coach gets fired anyway, and the next regime comes in and decides that they want to bring in their own guy.
This has happened to a number of Browns and Washington QBs over the last 25 years. Most of them were bad, but a number of them also just never got the chance to develop properly because there was so much coaching turnover. Lions and Dolphins as well.
So where might Eli Apple fit in? I’d say bad attitude mostly due to just how toxic he got around the Giants locker room and a bad tendency to not play well as a rookie. But do feel free to chime in since someone already brought up Flowers.