The funny thing about the NFL Draft is that failure is oftentimes more memorable than success. We look at the Broncos selecting Von Miller with the No. 2 overall pick and say good job, but when the San Diego Chargers select Ryan Leaf at the same position, we spend the next two decades laughing at their incompetence.
Busts live forever, and that’s what’s so scary for a talent evaluator. You could get nine picks right, but if you select Jamarcus Russell or Trent Richardson with that 10th pick, you’ll never live it down.
Luckily, the Broncos have never had a colossal, historically bad bust, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t had their fair share of questionable draft picks — everyone has. So, given that we detailed the Broncos’ best draft picks yesterday, it’s only fair that we look at their worst today.
While bust and bad are essentially the same thing, we’re focusing less on the failure of the player and more on the failure of the franchise. For example, Leaf was a bust because everyone expected him to be a good quarterback, and he wasn’t. The Raiders selecting Darrius Heyward-Bey with the seventh-overall pick was a bad selection because everybody thought it was dumb the moment it happened.
With that said, here are the five worst draft selections in Denver Broncos history:
5. Ashley Lelie (2002)
Pick: 1st Round (19th Overall) Experience: 7 years (4 with Broncos)
Career Stats: 217 receptions; 3,749 yards; 15 touchdowns
Ashley Lelie wasn’t so much a bad pick because he was a bust. There have been plenty of first-round wide receivers who have had worse careers than him. He was frustrating, absolutely, but he had his moments, catching 54 receptions for 1,084 yards and seven touchdowns in 2007.
On the whole, though, he was a disappointment, especially when you consider the guy taken five spots after him: Ed Reed.
Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, but there is no world in which the Broncos would have been better off with Lelie than Reed.
4. Jarvis Moss (2007)
Pick: 1st Round (17th Overall) Experience: 5 years (4 with Broncos)
Career Stats: 48 total tackles; 6 sacks; 1 forced fumble
The Jarvis Moss pick didn’t make sense in 2007, and it makes even less sense now.
He was a stick — 6-foot-7, 250 pounds — and aside from a few impressive performances where his pure athleticism allowed him to get into the backfield, he was manhandled by larger lineman at the college level, and it only got worse in the NFL.
Moss started a total of one game with the Broncos, and never recorded more than 2.5 sacks in a single season. Even worse, there were 16 players selected after him in the first and second rounds who went on to make a Pro Bowl in their career.
3. Maurice Clarett (2005)
Pick: 3rd Round (101st Overall) Experience: 0 years (0 with Broncos)
Career Stats: N/A
Here’s the thing with Maurice Clarett: He had all the talent in the world, and if Mike Shanahan wanted to take a risk on him, that’s fine; but not in the third round.
Clarett was projected to go in the sixth or seventh round, possibly undrafted, so why take him three or four rounds earlier? Shanahan could have very likely waited late into the draft and still picked up Clarett, and if someone else jumped up and grabbed him first, so be it; he can be their risk.
He was one of the biggest boom-or-bust prospects in years, and he busted; he didn’t even make it out of training camp. A third-round pick down the drain.
2. Tommy Maddox (1992)
Pick: 1st Round (25th Overall) Experience: 9 years (2 with Broncos)
Career Stats: 8,087 yards; 57.2% completion; 48 touchdowns; 54 interceptions
There are instances where it’s acceptable to draft a quarterback in the first round when you already have a Hall of Fame passer in your backfield; this is not one of them.
When the Broncos drafted Tommy Maddox with the 25th overall pick in 1992, Elway was a 32-year-old quarterback with five Pro Bowls, two Lombardi Trophies and a Super Bowl MVP ahead of him. So why did they need another quarterback, especially when Elway needed as much help as he could possibly get on the rest of the roster?
Well, because Elway and Dan Reeves didn’t get along, and that’s about it.
Maddox started four games for the Broncos, went 0-4, threw five touchdowns and nine interceptions. They could have spent that pick on just about anyone else and it would have been a better selection.
1. Alphonso Smith (2009)
Pick: 2nd Round (37th Overall) Experience: 4 years (1 with Broncos)
Career Stats: 83 total tackles; 8 interceptions; 2 fumble recoveries; 2 touchdowns
Hands down, the most inexcusable, short-sighted thing the Denver Broncos have done in recent memory. Not because they selected Alphonso Smith — that’s defensible — but because they gave up a first-round pick the next season to move up to draft Smith in the second round.
Any idea what that first-round pick turned into?
Smith was jettisoned out of Denver after one season, in which he totaled 12 tackles, three passes defensed and zero interceptions in 15 games, and he was out of the league entirely after four seasons.
Conversely, Earl Thomas has gone on to make five Pro Bowls, make three First-Team All-Pro selections, lead one of the greatest defenses in NFL history to a Super Bowl appearance and start 96 out of 96 possible games for the Seattle Seahawks.
Yeah … I think the Broncos would have preferred to keep that pick.
(Featured image courtesy of dentonrc.com)