Ranking NFL’s 10 biggest draft busts since 1990: Picks by Raiders, Bengals and Chargers top the list

When the 2023 NFL Draft begins this week, fans around the league will be hoping their favorite team can find a steal in the draft by landing the next Tom Brady (sixth-round pick in 2000) or the next Stefon Diggs (fifth-round pick, 2015). 

Although that’s the fantasy, the reality is that there’s a much more likely chance that your favorite team will end up drafting a total bust. Over the years, there have been dozens of busts, so with the draft right around the corner, now seems like a good time to rank the 10 biggest busts since 1990. 

Since we want these rankings to be slightly different than most bust rankings, here are the rules: To qualify for the bust list, you have to be at least a top-10 pick. 

For instance, although Johnny Manziel flamed out of the NFL after being selected with the 23rd overall pick in 2014, it’s not as ugly as the time Ryan Leaf flamed out of the NFL, and that’s because Leaf was a higher pick who had much higher expectations. 

Also, the team’s decision-making process going into the pick will factor into these rankings. 

Another rule here is that we’re only going to list a maximum of one bust per team. If we didn’t make that a rule, then this list would basically only be made up of former Bengals, Browns and Lions draft picks, and as fun as that list would be, we don’t want to terrorize just those three fan bases. We want to embarrass as many teams as possible by pointing out their worst draft picks.

Also, one thing you will notice is that Tim Couch and David Carr didn’t make the cut on this list. Being drafted by an expansion team as a quarterback puts you in a nearly impossible situation, so we’re not going to pile on those two guys by adding them to this list when it’s highly unlikely that any quarterback could have found success with the 1999 Browns or 2002 Texans. 

Finally, we’re not going to include anyone who was drafted within the past five years. Although Zach Wilson is already looking like a bust for the Jets, we’ll give him three more seasons before we decide whether to add him to the bust list. 

With that in mind, let’s get to the list of bigges busts, starting with Wilson’s team.

10. LB Vernon Gholston, Jets (2008, sixth overall pick)

After watching Gholston rack up an Ohio State single-season record of 14 sacks in 2007 — a record that stood until Chase Young broke it in 2019 — the Jets drafted him with hopes that he would…