NFL Draft busts: The biggest QB mistakes of the last 20 years

The NFL Draft is defined by the quarterback position. It’s been that way for the entirety of the modern era, and there’s no end in sight. Football is still a game dictated by quarterback play, and making the right choice for a passer can completely turn around a franchise. In the last two decades we have ample evidence of this with the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes, the Bills with Josh Allen, Joe Burrow and the Bengals — the list goes on.

What about the other end of the spectrum? Messing up a QB pick can cause multi-year damage, with a franchise wasting critical seasons waiting to see if a bad passer can develop, then needing to take another bite of the apple to find their franchise QB. On top of that there’s the eternal sting at what could have been, had the team either gone with a different quarterback, or addressed another position instead of reaching to fill a need.

The San Diego Chargers’ selection of Ryan Leaf will forever live in infamy, but that was over 25 years ago now. Who are the biggest mistakes if we pivot and focus on just the last two decades?

JaMarcus Russell, 2007 No. 1 overall pick — Oakland Raiders

The 2007 NFL Draft is one of the most legendary classes football history. The first round gave us four Hall of Fame players already in Calvin Johnson, Joe Thomas, Patrick Willis, and Darrelle Revis — with Adrian Peterson sure to join the group as well. The No.1 pick, however, was …. woof.

Russell already has the odious honor of being regarded as one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history, but the selection is even more damaging in light of the players the Raiders missed out on because of taking him. From the second he arrived in Oakland it became clear that JaMarcus Russell didn’t have any of the foundational qualities to be an NFL quarterback. Sure, there was the massive arm and the ability to rifle the ball into tight spaces, but he had no mobility, horrific decision making, and one of the lowest football IQs we’ve ever seen out of a 1st round quarterback.

Released after three seasons, Russell barely completed over 50% of his career passes, threw 18 touchdowns to 23 interceptions, and posted a career passer rating of 65.1. He was so objectively awful that nobody even gave him a second chance beyond a workout with a team, and those went so poorly his NFL career was over.

Jake Locker, 2011 No. 8 overall pick — Tennessee Titans

There was an incredibly weird phenomenon which happened during the 2011 NFL Draft in which everyone was falling over themselves to avoid admitting that Cam Newton was head and shoulders above the rest of the class. People didn’t like Newton’s bravado paired with a boom-or-bust skillset — and this led to a lot of over-inflated mediocrity at the QB position.

Three QBs were selected in the first round after Cam, and they were all ass. It would definitely be fair to put either Blaine Gabbert or Christian Ponder on this list, but the mediocrity was led into battle by Jake Locker who gets the nod here.

There was functionally zero reason Locker should have been a Top 10 pick after his senior season at Washington. This was a guy who got Top 3 pick hype in 2010, but decided to return to school because he thought he could go No. 1 overall. Horrific regression led to a college season that saw him finish with 2,265 yards, 17 TDs and 9 INT — not college numbers that get you taken on the first two days, let alone in the Top 10.

Still, the Titans were intoxicated by the 2010 version of Locker and thought his poor year was due to the program, not the QB. They quickly learned how wrong they were. Locker was either hurt, or playing mediocre football — managing to only start 23 games in four seasons. He ended his NFL career with 27 touchdowns, 22 interceptions, and a passer rating of 79.0.

E.J. Manuel, 2013 No. 16 overall pick — Buffalo Bills

There is a very real scenario where this could have been the biggest mistake in NFL history. Somewhere inside the multiverse there exists a version of the Bills who gave E.J. Manuel more time trying to make him the starter, which led to them deciding not to take Josh Allen in 2018. Just because they dodged the biggest mistake in history didn’t mean they didn’t make a key error here.

Manuel typified the desperation pick archetype. It was widely accepted that the 2013 QB class wasn’t good, but the Bills were starving for a QB so badly that they made the shock pick to take Manuel in the 1st round when the assumption was that Geno Smith would be the first quarterback off the board. The decision was based purely on upside, with the Bills loving Manuel’s big frame and giant arm.

The issue is that on film Manuel played so much smaller than his size. He was routinely afraid of pressure, which caused his accuracy to plummet, and wasn’t capable of making NFL throws unless the blocking in front of him was perfect. It more or less says it all that the official NFL.com draft comparison for Manuel was Blaine Gabbert.

Johnny Manziel, 2014 No. 22 overall pick — Cleveland Browns

It’s “Johnny Football” time baby! The Browns’ decision to take Johnny Manziel in 2014 was legendarily bad because they failed to identify all the red flags every other team saw. Here was a super productive, Heisman-winning college QB and nobody wanted anything to do with him. You’d think that might tip them off something was wrong.

Manziel was the equivalent of raw oysters at a landlocked Midwest steakhouse. They might look good on the menu, but you know there’s something off about them and why nobody else is ordering them. We know the story from here, and Manziel was a legendary bust who never took learning the game seriously, behaved as if he knew more than everyone else, and never translated from the Air Raid offense he ran in college.

Sprinkle in a healthy helping of off-field issues and you have a disaster everyone saw coming … except for the Browns.

Zach Wilson, 2021 No. 2 overall pick — New York Jets

Zach Wilson is unique on this list as a player I saw bust coming from a mile away leading up to the draft, and watched it all unfold. The comparisons to Aaron Rodgers that were foisted on Wilson were hilarious, because if you watched him at BYU you saw a QB who didn’t throw a catchable ball, didn’t respond well to pressure, stat-padded against horrible opponents, and his entire production was based on throwing high-point balls to extremely tall receivers.

Wilson is unique in that he’s so bad that multiple teams have taken fliers on him since being released from the Jets to see if they can coach him up, and he keeps getting cut. Kudos to him for still getting paid in the NFL though.

Trey Lance, 2021 No. 3 overall pick — San Francisco 49ers

This is one of the most fascinating picks in recent memory, because something had to have happened behind the scenes that we still don’t know about. The 49ers traded up to No. 3 well before the draft took place, meaning they liked multiple quarterbacks on the board — and everyone thought Mac Jones was the archetypal Kyle Shanahan passer. Then the Niners threw a curve ball by taking Trey Lance.

The decision to take Lance is even more fascinating in light of Jones’ arrival in San Francisco now, and his stellar performance while filling in for Brock Purdy in 2025 due to injury. So why was Lance taken? Was it cold feet? Concern about Jones’ ceiling? The thing with Lance is that nothing about his skillset seemed to mesh with the 49ers offense, and he was always going to be a project QB who needed to sit for 2-3 seasons before he would be ready to start.

Instead the 49ers tried to make it happen too soon, Lance was awful, and in hindsight the team could have taken Ja’Marr Chase.

Kenny Pickett, 2022 No. 16 overall pick — Pittsburgh Steelers

Run this one back to E.J. Manuel from 2013 because this was another pure desperation pick. Another class that had no reliable 1st round QBs, the Steelers were willing to sit on an island and fall into the pressure to take Pickett early.

Perhaps it was just that they really needed a quarterback, or fans clamoring for Pickett after his performance at Pitt in college — either way, it was clear that Pickett was never, ever going to be good, let alone great. A middling performer who couldn’t get the job done, this was a wasted pick by a team that could have achieved so much more by realizing that Pickett wasn’t the guy, or at least seeing if they could nab him in the second round.

Taking a QB at No. 16 meant passing on Trent McDuffie, Tyler Linderbaum, Devin Lloyd, and George Karlaftis — all of whom could have been difference makers.

Anthony Richardson, 2023 No. 4 overall pick — Indianapolis Colts

The most recent addition to this list, we can probably put a fork in A-Rich’s career unless he manages to have an unlikely Sam Darnold-esque turnaround. The difference is that Darnold was seen as a polished quarterback entering the draft, while Richardson was a phenomenal athlete who needed to learn how to be a pro quarterback.

That evolution has never materialized over the course of his career. Football IQ is still an issue, passing mechanics are still a problem, and injuries have been rearing their head in such a way that Richardson’s most reliable quality, his skill as a running QB, has been neutralized.

This was a player who really needed a system to support and develop him over time. Not start him year one and throw him to the wolves. Part victim of the Colts’ system, part simply being bad — Richardson has been firmly replaced by Daniel Jones and is now destined to be traded away for pennies on the dollar. Can he turn it around? Maybe, but the future doesn’t look promising.