NFL Draft: 10 worst No. 1 overall picks
By John Buhler
4. player. 56. . Defensive Tackle. Cincinnati Bengals. Dan Wilkinson
It’s not that Dan Wilkinson was a bad player in the NFL by any means, but the Cincinnati Bengals and Wilkinson meshed about as well as oil and water. Wilkinson may have been a can’t miss prospect at defensive tackle coming out of Ohio State in 1994, but Marshall Faulk went No. 2 to the Colts. Faulk was one of the most complete running backs the NFL has ever seen.
Wilkinson was a malcontent from the start in Cincinnati, holding out and calling the town racist after four seasons with the Bengals. Though he would go on to have 54.5 quarterback sacks in 195 games and 182 starts in 13 NFL seasons, Cincinnati’s decision to trade him to Washington was a disaster for the Bengals.
Cincinnati expected to have a generational type of talent at defensive tackle in Wilkinson, but got an alienated mid-level player by the time he was 24. The Bengals would have the No. 1 overall pick again in 1995 and would miss again (more on that in a bit). These poor drafting decisions led to the Bengals being known as the Bungles until the Marvin Lewis era in the early 2000s.
Like Bruce, Wilkinson would have a respectable and lengthy NFL career, but mostly for another team that didn’t draft him. Atlanta and Cincinnati’s first overall draft failures set the franchises back considerably. Honestly, neither Bruce or Wilkinson lived up to the enormous hype. Essentially, even if a team gets its hands on a transformative talent, there are no guarantees that he and his franchise will coexist. Wilkinson and the Bengals are a perfect example of such a relationship.
Next: 3. Tom Cousineau, Buffalo Bills, 1979