I find it to be extraordinarily interesting how players can be regarded so highly at one point and fall so far within a matter of years. On draft day, becoming a first-round pick means, in theory, that you are one of the top-30 best young players in the world. You have been on all-star team after all-star team, you are the once-in-a-decade player every university dreams of, and your limbs are comparable in size and strength to the support beams of Charles Pratt Dormitory.
My favorite draft bust, other than the too-oft-analyzed Ryan Leaf, is former Michigan State wide receiver Charles Rogers. Rogers became one of the greatest wideouts in college football history and won the 2002 Biletnikoff Award. He also holds the Spartans record for most touchdowns in a career, with 27, and the single-game record for receiving yards, with 270.
Rogers was drafted second overall in 2003, between future Pro-Bowl caliber players in Carson Palmer and Andre Johnson. In his first year, Rogers caught 22 passes for 243 yards and then faced serious collarbone injuries for the remainder of that season. After missing essentially the entirety of the following season, Rogers was cited for his third violation of the NFL’s substance abuse policy.
Year after year, the wideout repeatedly failed to make a significant impact. In 2006, he was released by the Detroit Lions—he was deemed unfit for the team by coach Rod Marinelli. Interestingly, the same player in whom the Lions invested their future was unable to even make the team three years later. Rogers worked out for several teams in 2007, and ran a 4.8 40-yard dash, a steep decline from the elite 4.28 he ran at the Indianapolis combine weeks before draft day. I really can’t imagine how a player can go from being the best to being terrible in such a short amount of time. It takes an abundance of skill, nerves and intangible qualities to have the status to be the second pick in the NFL draft. Where all of that went is beyond me.
Taking a look back at the drafts of recent years provides an accurate cross section of the random nature the draft has. As drafted players typically are allowed three years before they can be accurately judged as professionals, I’ll begin with the 2004 draft.
In 2004, the Giants took future Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning. Thinking they were getting a player of similar ability, the Oakland Raiders went on to take Robert Gallery at number two. That guy sucks. He was moved to left tackle in 2006 in an attempt to eliminate his problem of not understanding the concept of pass protection. In 2002, there were numerous busts within the top-five picks. David Carr, Joey Harrington, and Quentin Jammer have been bad at best, while Mike Williams could not make an XFL team. Any of the teams that drafted those players would have loved to have had Brian Westbrook with the 91st pick, or Aaron Kampman with the 156th pick. If there’s one guaranteed aspect of the draft, it’s that nothing is guaranteed.
The main idea of this piece is to point out that every player taken in the early rounds is only looked at in a positive light, and that is downright dumb. We hear how great of a guy the player is—how he has great determination, and how this is the person that will carry the franchise to the promised land. Five years down the road, we will all be saying how horrible the guy is, asking why he has no work ethic and wondering why he’s now working as a peanut vendor. First-round players have a greater likelihood of making the Pro Bowl than players from any other round, but draft analysts need to understand how fast and far a player can fall. Just ask Charles Rogers.