I could make this easy for you the reader and me the writer and just go on an endless tirade of how much of a bust former QB Jamarcus Russell was. I think we could all agree that the former Raiders first pick works better as the punchline to a myriad of football-related jokes than as an actual football player. It’s baffling how a player who was so highly touted by football scouts and NFL odds experts could end up becoming such a bust. Still, here we are, remembering him, and not for the right reasons.
But why stop at Russell when talking about rookie QB busts? The list of talented college passers that went on to have a rather sad and lowly career in the pros is a rather hefty and plentiful one. Just like Vegas NFL odds outlets usually get it right when picking the best future prospects coming into the league, there are times when everyone is blindsided by a promise that ends up going south.
According to the NFL predictions, let us recount some of the biggest rookie QB busts that NFL fans have had to see in recent times. Maybe this will produce a laugh, maybe it might produce some buried anger to resurface, but above all, maybe this will help fans understand that sometimes in life, and in football, when something is too good to be true, it probably is.
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Ryan Leaf
Ha! You probably thought that this list would start with Russell, right? Well no, that would be too easy, so let’s start this list with a QB that many NFL experts picks consider to be an even bigger bust than Jamarcus, former Chargers QB Ryan Leaf. This man will always be remembered for two specific things.
One, being drafted right after Peyton Manning in the 1998 draft, leading some football connoisseurs to doubt whether picking Manning over Leaf was the best choice for the Colts at the moment. Well, those doubts pretty much answered themselves in a matter of a couple of downs. The other is his erratic, rude, and all-around toxic behavior as a pro football player.
To say that Leaf didn’t get off on the right foot in the league is treading lightly. The former Chargers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cowboys, and Seahawks bench warmer made a name for himself for being a lousy passer, a sore loser, a player who blamed and antagonized his teammates for his poor playing, a bully to reporters, and a mess of a professional.
Tim Couch
Back in 1999 the Cleveland Browns made their way back into the league as an expansion team. Given that they had to start from zero, picking a QB was their main priority. So, what did the Browns do? They went ahead and with the first pick in that year’s draft, they selected former Kentucky Wildcats QB Tim Couch. They could’ve taken Donovan McNabb or Daunte Culpepper, the two best QBs to come out of a draft that was an all-around bust for any team looking for a passer, but no, they had to go with Couch.
Now, I’m not here to say that Couch was a bad QB, because who knows, maybe in his day-to-day, if given a football he probably had some shining moments, but he was far, far from being the quarterback that the Browns needed. His playing was subpar at best, even after leading the Browns to one playoff appearance. The man would get injured just by looking at him. His offensive line was almost non-existent, yes, Joe Thomas hadn’t arrived in Cleveland yet, and overall, he was just bad.
Rex Grossman
Remember the last time the Bears made it to the Super Bowl? Devin Hester’s kick return TD to start the game in what still to this day is probably one of the best touchdowns in Super Bowl history. Do you remember who the QB for the Bears in that game was? It might take you a minute to remember since he’s forgettable at best, but Rex Grossman, the former Florida Gators QB and Chicago Bears 22nd pick in the 2003 draft was the starting passer for the Bears that game.
When he joined the league in ’03, many compared his style of playing and talents to how Brett Favre played the game, with one slight and yet gigantic difference though. While Favre was known for slinging touchdown passes like it was nobody’s business, Grossman had a thing for throwing interceptions. If there was ever an award for the best interception passer in the league, Grossman would’ve taken the trophy by a landslide.
Yes, he was the QB for that ’06 Bears team that made it to the Super Bowl, even in a losing effort against Peyton Manning and the Colts, but let’s be honest here. That Bears team was all about their defense and Devin Hester, which says a lot about how important Grossman’s role was before becoming a perennial benchwarmer for the rest of his career.
Josh Rosen
The time was 2018, rookie QBs were a dime a dozen in the draft and for teams looking for a new franchise passer, the market was ripe with some good prospects. One of those, at least up until after the draft was former Bruins QB, Josh Rosen. While everyone thought that Rosen had the potential to be a number 1 pick, he ended up being picked 10th by the Arizona Cardinals.
What would follow would be Rosen warning the teams that brushed him off of the error they made for not taking him, calling the nine players picked before him “nine mistakes”. What would then follow after that is Rosen becoming one of the biggest, if not the biggest QB bust in recent times in the league.
It only took a handful of games for Rosen to show that he had no chops to be a starting QB. Just one year after being selected by the Cardinals, Arizona would take QB Kyler Murray in the draft, prompting Rosen’s departure to Miami, where he started a long and eventless journey as a backup for the Dolphins, Buccaneers, 49ers, and now Browns.
As of now, five teams have made the mistake of taking him, he only needs four more to complete the “nine mistakes” prophecy, but with a different outcome altogether.
Jamarcus Russell
Last, but certainly not least, there’s no way this list could finish without mentioning former Raiders bust Jamarcus Russell. How a player who had a very good mix of talent and size and who had a very good career playing at LSU ended up being such a joke is something that will haunt NFL fans until the day football is officially canceled forever.
Russell was lazy at best. He never really showed any will to want to play in the pros. He didn’t care about playbooks, training, or anything. How he managed to stay three years in the league says more about how badly ran the Raiders were during the years in which Russell was in the league than anything else.
If it wasn’t for the existence of Ryan Leaf, the votes on who the biggest QB bust in the NFL would all go to Russell, or maybe he wouldn’t even compete because of how lazy he was.
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