New Orleans Saints: 5 worst NFL Draft picks of all-time

It sounds crazy in hindsight, but the Saints used their 11th overall pick in the 1979 NFL Draft on a kicker/punter. While those two skill positions do play a huge role in a team’s success, it’s almost unheard of to use a first-round pick on a special teams player.

The Saints did just that when they selected three-time consensus All-American kicker/punter Russell Erxleben out of the University of Texas in 1979. He was top high school recruit in Texas back in 1975, so it would make perfect since that he would sign with the Texas Longhorns.

While the Saints believed that the collegiate standout special teamer would appropriately fill both of their placekicking and punting roles on their roster for years to come, that wouldn’t prove the case. In his first game as a professional against the Saints’ biggest rival in the Atlanta Falcons, he had the ball snapped over his head in overtime deep in New Orleans territory. To avoid a safety, he threw a chest pass right to a Falcons’ defender who went in for the game-winning touchdown.

Erxleben would suffer a hamstring injury in Week 2 of the 1979 season versus the Green Bay Packers and New Orleans would have to use a wide receiver as an emergency kicker. The Saints would finish .500 in 1979 and missed out on their first trip to the NFC Playoffs by one game, as the 1979 Los Angeles Rams would go 9-7 and win the NFC West.

Erxleben would play a few more years in the NFL, but it seems that the Saints put way too much pressure on him to handle both punting and kicking duties as a rookie in 1979. New Orleans would release their former first round pick in 1983 and he would play one more year in the NFL with the Detroit Lions before retiring in 1988.

Next: 4. DT Kevin Hardy, 1968, No. 12 overall