Top 10 top 10 pick QBs who were / are worse Jamarcus Russell
I saw some guy on Twitter making a joke that involved the assumption that Jamarcus Russell was the acknowledged worst QB of the last 40 years (and somehow made Deshaun Watson comparable to Michael Vick? It was dumb on multiple levels) and it got me spewing nonsense on that accursed website that got some great responses on other terrible QBs.
If you’re expecting a rigid analysis of bad QBs from the bowels of NFL history, you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you want my own list of highly drafted QBs that were actually worse than Jamarcus, here’s a listicle!
Before I dive into my own junk opinions I want to throw out some names that were crowd-sourced from twitter but don’t meet my criterion of highly drafted: Rusty Lisch (h/t Jay Vee), Scott Tolzien (h/t Butters), and Brodie Croyle (h/t Jayhawk.)
I’m doing a little bit of fact checking but not much as I let these fly. I’m using profootball-reference’s AV stat and looking for top 10 draft picks that never reached the lofty highs of Jamarcus’s AV of 7 in 2008.
1. Akili Smith, Bengals, #3 overall pick 1999
There are surprisingly few embarrassing pictures for a guy who was so incredibly bad. Akili stands out in my mind as being the worst guy I ever saw trying to play QB in the NFL and the numbers back that up. ANY/A is a stat that is used sort of widely. A good QB season is usually around 6 or 7, 5 and above is at least useful, Akili’s for 2000, the only season he started a majority of his team’s games? 2.81!
2. Art Schlichter, Colts, #4 overall pick 1982
I wanted to put Cade McNown here since he was in the same draft class as Akili Smith but he was picked just outside of the top 10 so I went with this classic piece of shit. People who love Ohio State will tell you that Schlichter could have been good without his personal demons but I’m here to tell you, folks, nothing supports that. I know he didn’t ever play there but the Colts were so high on what they saw from the #4 overall pick in 1982 that they drafted John Elway at #1 the next year. Schlichter didn’t play much but when he did he was among the least efficient QBs to ever suit up in professional football.
3. Heath Shuler, Washington, #3 overall pick in 1994
Heath Shuler gets too much credit for being a bad politician and not nearly enough for being a bad quarterback. I remember when he first got on the field in 1994 my dad was really excited by his strong arm and agility. Within a couple of weeks he had given up completely on Heath Shuler. Shuler’s last season in 1997 in New Orleans is a masterpiece of bad QB stats in the modern era. Statistically the Saints would have been better off not playing anybody at the QB position rather than let Shuler go out there.
4. Andre Ware, Lions, #7 overall in 1990
I hate to do this because that card there with all of his passing numbers listed played a big part in me becoming the draft loving, Heisman obsessed idiot that I am today. I probably should have considered just how many INTs are listed there but that’s not how my 13 year old brain worked. Ware did absolutely nothing in the NFL and I’m finally coming around to the realization that it wasn’t because the league was wrong and that he deserved more chances.
5. David Klingler, Bengals, #6 overall in 1992
The second Bengals pick and the second Houston Cougar to show up here, Klingler is great because NFL teams fell in love with him in 1990 for doing the same shit as Andre Ware but with even more INTs, then fell out of love with him in 1991 because he showed he couldn’t handle pressure and didn’t really have that great of an arm and the Bengals still took him at #6 overall. He did a lot worse in his career than I would have guessed and I already thought he was bad.
6. Todd Blackledge, Chiefs, #7 overall in 1983
Why, yes, that is Todd Blackledge getting sacked by Brian Bosworth. Blackledge getting drafted over Jim Kelly and Dan Marino is goddam unbelievable but you know what’s great? Even taking him over Tony Eason looks like the stupidest pick in the world and Eason is in a distant 5th place out of the 6 QBs picked in the first round of this fabled draft. Eason merely sucked. Blackledge is an all time bad player who managed to never start more than half of his team’s games in a season.
7. Kelly Stouffer, Cardinals, #6 overall in 1987
Stouffer never played a down for the Cardinals who drafted him after Neil Lomax had a career worst year in 1986. Is this cheating for the purposes of this post? Stouffer never actually signed with the Cardinals but they did trade away his rights for a first rounder and two second round picks. The Cards didn’t do many things right in those days but they dodged a bullet with Stouffer and got a good return in theory (I can’t find who they actually drafted with the picks but I’m not trying very hard) for his year of non-service. Lomax was pretty good again in 1988 but got hurt and retired. Stouffer did start 16 games for the Seahawks... over parts of five seasons.
8. Ryan Leaf, Chargers, #2 overall pick in 1998
After all these years and all of the words written about how bad he is it is shocking to look up the numbers and see just how bad Leaf was on the field. This guy was considered more or less equivalent to Peyton Manning coming out of school and the Chargers swore up and down they would have taken him at #1. For perspective on how bad Leaf was, Andre Wadsworth (#3 overall) and Curtis Enis (#5 overall) produced demonstrably more value for the teams that drafted them.
9. Jake Locker, Titans, #8 overall in 2011
Apologies to Miz but there’s actually no supporting evidence to suggest Hurt Locker would have ever been good even if he hadn’t been hurt all the time. In his defense the lows were not as low with him as they were with Jamarcus but the highs also weren’t as high and that doesn’t say much for his ability to actually play.
10. Blaine Gabbert, Jaguars, #10 overall in 2011
A lot of people think Colin Kaepernick’s case is unwinnable because they don’t think there will be any smoking gun of conspiracy but 1) people are stupid even when they have the job you want, 2) Blaine Gabbert played on the same teams as Kaepernick the last few years. Gabbert is still on an active roster and will probably get snaps this week. When Gabbert got the 49ers job away from an injured and suffering Kaepernick in 2015 he actually looked slightly better. And that was the best one guy played and by far the worst the other guy has ever played. Care to guess which is which? Gabbert is atrocious and has a long body of work to carry my thesis. 2011 was the year the draft occurred during a work stoppage and teams went bonkers drafting QBs under the (correct) assumption the league could force the union to accept a rookie salary cap and wage scale. That’s why Locker squeaked onto this list and how Gabbert got on here, as well. NFL teams haven’t been quite as overdraft crazy in the years since no matter how bad teams are due to poor QB play. My theory is that Gabbert was so bad that teams are scared to exploit an obvious market inefficiency - a high draft pick costs roughly backup QB money so if you miss you have a shitty backup but if you hit you have the most important position in sports at a dollar premium.
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