NFL Draft: 10 worst No. 1 overall picks

There’s no denying it because quarterback Tim Couch was an incredible quarterback in the SEC for the Kentucky Wildcats. He was a consensus All-American and a Heisman finalist in 1998 for Kentucky, throwing for 8,772 yards and 76 touchdowns in three years for the Wildcats.

Naturally the promising college passer was what the newly revived Cleveland Browns wanted with their No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft. Unfortunately, playing for an expansion team as a young quarterback is a recipe for disaster.

Couch would play five seasons for the Browns as their starting quarterback, going 22-37 in 59 starts for Cleveland. He took a beating under center in his rookie season with the Browns, being sacked a league-worst 56 times as a 22-year-old rookie. Cleveland went 2-14 in 1999, again winding up with the worst record in football and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2000 NFL Draft.

Couch wasn’t atrocious at quarterback for Cleveland, completing 59.8% of his passes for 11,131 yards, 64 touchdowns, and 67 interceptions. The problem was that by the time he was supposed to hit his stride as an NFL passer in his mid-20s, he was an also-ran quarterback on his way out of the league.

Keep in mind that since the Browns rejoined the NFL as an expansion team in 1999, starting quarterback has been the greatest of enigmas of football in Northeastern Ohio. Couch was the first of a long line of failures at the position in Cleveland. Frankly the Browns are still trying to replace Bernie Kosar decades later and Couch is synonymous with the losing culture in Cleveland, for better or worse.

Next: 8. Courtney Brown, Cleveland Browns, 2000