Bleacher Report’s all-time sports draft bust list overlooked two infamous Lions failures
Detroit Lions were well represented on an all-time draft bust list. The surprising part wasn’t who made it—it was which infamous Detroit draft failures were left off entirely.
When you look back at all of the classic NFL draft busts, it’s easy to see multiple Detroit Lions players making the list.
In fact, someone actually made a list recently. The good people over at Bleacher Report devised an entire system to determine the 99 biggest draft busts of all time in every sport. There were four Lions on the list. Let’s talk about those and some of the guys we think they may have forgotten to add.
The Lions’ busts who made the list
- Jeff Okudah (99)
- Mike Williams (85)
- Joey Harrington (51)
- Charles Rogers (21)
All of those make perfect sense for the most part. I don’t know if I would have necessarily included Okudah. Has he lived up to where he was picked? Absolutely not. Has he turned into an NFL starter? Yes. That has actually happened.
The Millen classics are exactly where they need to be here. Not one of those guys lived up to their draft status, and they still just feel like bad picks that were bad picks on draft day as well. The Mike Williams pick never felt like it was something the Lions should have done.
Who we would have included
Andre Ware was a big one. he was coming off winning the Heisman Trophy, and the Lions picked him seventh overall. He was supposed to be Detroit’s long-term franchise quarterback. Instead, he started sick games in four seasons, and the Lions moved on.
The other one was Titus Young. Yes, he was a second-round pick, but after his rookie season, the hype for Young was so incredibly high. Then he dealt with some personal issues, including deciding to line up incorrectly on purpose during a game because he was mad he wasn’t getting targeted that day.
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