The biggest busts in NFL draft history: Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russell, Akili Smith

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Every year, the biggest names in college football come to the trading block, and NFL teams go to great lengths to pick out the future superstar. Sometimes, this strategy pays off big, turning a franchise’s fortunes around or securing its future as a playoff contender. Other times, however, it all seems to go south.

There is an inherent problem with identifying a true “bust” in the NFL. If you include all of those who don’t live up to their full potential or the promise that they seemed to possess in college, then that list is as long as your arm and can include names of players who actually ended up with respectable careers. Vinny Testaverde is a prime example.

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While he never took the NFL by storm in the way that he did the college game at Miami, Testaverde eventually ground out a 21-year NFL career that included two Pro-Bowl appearances. Hardly a “bust”, even if he underperformed most peoples’ expectations.

You can add to that list Tim Tebow, Ricky Williams, Matt Leinart, and Reggie Bush. All did good things, and all had respectable days in the NFL, but none lived up to the expectations that were heaped on their shoulders.

Disappointment, however, is not the same as a true “bust”. So, with that caveat in mind, here are our five biggest NFL busts of all time.

1. Ryan Leaf

The top spot in our list will surprise no one, with Ryan Leaf famously the biggest bust in NFL history. Coming out of Washington State, he was debated as a possible number one pick alongside Peyton Manning n the 1998 draft, but his off-field demeanor and poor attitude led the Indianapolis Colts to take Manning first overall. The San Diego Chargers jumped on Leaf and regretted it from the get-go.

Losing the locker room almost instantly, Leaf was seen as a selfish jerk by his own teammates. After posting a dismal 36 interceptions for only 14 touchdowns, the Chargers released him just two years later.

Part of the mystique surrounding Leaf’s infamous flame-out in the NFL is what came next. Turning to drugs and alcohol, Leaf was given a decade of probation for drug offenses. As soon as that finished, he was back to the same routine, burgling the home of a player that he knew, stealing pills from a pharmacy, violating parole, and a host of other charges that see him facing a 50-year stretch in prison.

2. JaMarcus Russell

JaMarcus Russell tore the SEC up during his time at LSU. He was a superstar in every sense of the word. Russell led the Tigers to two SEC Championship games, taking down a seemingly invincible Alabama along the way, and was rewarded by going number one overall in the 2007 NFL Draft.

His arm strength and physical size had teams falling over themselves to pick him up, and the then-Oakland Raiders took him as the heir apparent to their franchise’s top spot. He was the first of four LSU players taken in the first round that year.

Things started badly when he held out of training camp, starting only one game in his rookie season. After a lackluster 7-18 record, the Raiders dumped him three years later and he never again set foot on an NFL field.

3. Akili Smith

Sometimes boom and bust is the result of the perfect storm. Such a storm was brewing in Cincinnati in the 1999 draft when the Bengals were still reeling from their fizzling investment in Dave Klingler. Akili Smith had notoriously underproduced in college, specifically in relation to his low academic scores and terrible performance on the Wonderlic test.

Just as the Bengals were casting around for a quarterback, Smith had a career season at Oregon, launching him into the national spotlight. Not enough due diligence led a desperate Cincinnati to take him number three overall in the draft.

Those low academic scores belied underlying issues with his ability to learn the playbook and he wound up being released after a 3-14 record over three seasons. Smith tried out for the Packers and Buccaneers before a short stint in the NFL Europe led him to the CFL. Three exhibition games was enough to convince the Calgary Stampeders to cut him loose.

4. Heath Shuler

A role as one of the top quarterbacks in the SEC led to Tennessee’s Heath Shuler finishing second in the 1993 Heisman race. The Redskins thought that they had a potential franchise quarterback when they took him in the first round of the 1994 draft, but Shuler wound up losing the job to Gus Frerotte who was taken in the seventh round as Shuler’s backup.

Three years and just 13 starts later, the Redskins traded Shuler to the Saints, who let him go after a foot injury derailed his hopes there. Two surgeries and a trade to Oakland later, and that same foot injury saw Shuler retire from the NFL.

His NFL career the very definition of a bust, Shuler went back to school and completed his degree in psychology before getting elected to the US House of Representatives in 2006 as a conservative-leaning Democrat.

5. Brian Bosworth

No “bust” list could be complete without the Boz. The only non-quarterback on our list, Brian Bosworth was a force of nature at Oklahoma. To this day he is the only player to ever win the Butkus Award more than once, and Bosworth was one of only a handful of defensive players to seriously be mentioned in Heisman discussions. The award went to Vinny Testaverde that year.

After being kicked off the team after the Orange Bowl for his off-field antics and media outbursts, the Boz was taken in the 1987 supplemental draft and signed what was at that time the biggest NFL rookie contract ever for $11 million. Although he performed well on the field, apart from the notorious Bo Jackson meeting, Bosworth had the shoulders of a geriatric patient and after just 24 games, he was forced to retire from football.

Few have made as much noise in college football as Brian Bosworth did, and he was expected to radically alter the way the game was played for generations to come. When he left the NFL it was not with a bang but with a whimper.