These 30 draft busts will go down in NFL history.
With the 2016 NFL draft less than a month away, all 32 teams have at least one reason to be optimistic about the future.
This year’s draft will take place in Chicago from April 28-30. Clubs with high picks like the Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns will look to add an impact player to lead them to contention. Others, like the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers, will hope to snag an undervalued prospect near the end of the first round.
As exciting as it is to have a high draft pick, however, it does cause some level of apprehension. There’s always a risk of selecting the next infamous NFL draft bust; just about every team has misfired with a high pick at some point in their history.
Of course, it’s happened to a few teams much more than others. The Browns have made all sorts of mistakes in the draft since the franchise was reborn in 1999, while the Cincinnati Bengals took a long time to move past their missteps in the 1990s.
Unsurprisingly, many of the most memorable busts over the years have been quarterbacks. Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell and Blaine Gabbert stand out as just a few of the biggest quarterback busts of the modern era.
Injuries and off-field issues have hurt a number of high draft selections over the years, while others have been unable to make the jump from the college level. These 30 players stand out as the biggest NFL draft busts of all time.
Next: 30. Mike Williams, WR, Detroit Lions