Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

With Johnny Manziel officialy released by Cleveland, he will join Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, Akili Smith, Heath Shuler and other a as the worst QBs ever drafted. Who will be your worst four?

Mine would be Russell, Leaf, Manziel and Akili.

Teo wrote:With Johnny Manziel officialy released by Cleveland, he will join Ryan Leaf, JaMarcus Russell, Akili Smith, Heath Shuler and other a as the worst QBs ever drafted. Who will be your worst four?

Mine would be Russell, Leaf, Manziel and Akili.

I would pick either Art Schlicter or Heath Shuler instead of Manziel, since they were picked #4 and #3 in their respective drafts. Manziel had plenty of red flags, which is why he dropped to #22.

Quick trivia...who is the only QB taken in the first round between 1970-2015 that never started a game in the NFL?

I'd wait and see, but here is a link of QBs taken in 1st round, some real dogs

http://pfref.com/tiny/Cwkit

The list gives the answer. It's Rich Campbell.

Cleveland traded away Paul Warfield to get Miami's first round draft choice in 1970, and picked QB Mike Phipps. Warfield was a Hall Of Fame end. To make up for this, the Browns traded away Ron Johnson and Jim Kanicki to get an over the hill Homer Jones from the New York Giants. Jones didn't even end up starting for Cleveland. Phipps turned out to be a disappointment.

Ron Johnson became a star for the Giants and Kanicki improved their defensive line. Art was really on a roll.

Leaf, Akili Smith, Shuler, Schlichter.

I'm with BD in thinking that the draft position increases the magnitude of the "bustness". In fairness, though, 1994 wasn't that great of a draft class after Faulk went off the board, so the opportunity lost for Shuler isn't as high as in most years.

The thing with Jamarcus is, he went into such a horrible, horrible pit of poo that it's hard to blame him for his downfall, as compared to Schlichter and Leaf, where it was 100% self-inflicted. Shuler and Akili just didn't have what it took to succeed at the next level, and would have bombed out anywhere. But I suspect that Russell could have had a career if he'd been drafted by a significant chunk of teams in the league.

Saban wrote:Cleveland traded away Paul Warfield to get Miami's first round draft choice in 1970, and picked QB Mike Phipps. Warfield was a Hall Of Fame end. To make up for this, the Browns traded away Ron Johnson and Jim Kanicki to get an over the hill Homer Jones from the New York Giants. Jones didn't even end up starting for Cleveland. Phipps turned out to be a disappointment.

Ron Johnson became a star for the Giants and Kanicki improved their defensive line. Art was really on a roll.

Phipps looked ready to take charge in 1972 when he helped get them to a playoff berth. However, he was picked off five times against the undefeated Dolphins in the playoff, the last coming with a little over a minute to go at the Miami 35 with the Browns only needing a touchdown to pull a huge upset.

However, he was terrible the following year and the team bottomed out the next two years. In 1976, he started the opener against the Jets, but suffered a shoulder injury in the game and Brian Sipe never let him get the job back. By the following draft, he was traded to Chicago for a first round pick in '78--which the Browns used to take Ozzie Newsome.

One telling comment about Phipps came from Blanton Collier, who came back in 1976 as the Browns QB coach. He later noted that Phipps wasn't all that interested in putting in all the work that was needed--the opposite of the less-physically gifted Sipe.

Todd Marinovich belong on the discussion?

Though he showed flashes and stuck around the league for a while I think Jeff George belongs in the discussion.