10 Worst Lions Draft Picks of the last 25 years

The 2010 NFL draft is now complete and every team in the NFL thinks they've gotten all of the steals in the draft and each one is ready for a brand new run at the Super Bowl. It's the same thing every year. Coaches and GM's love the players they've drafted, otherwise they wouldn't have been picked.

Which automatically brings to my mind the main question of every draft, other than who's going to Canton from this class, who's going to be the biggest bust? But it also brings to mind all of the busts the Lions have been involved with.

Surprisingly, the Lions don't have the avalanche of outright screwjobs you'd expect, however, on the other hand, they have very, very few "great" picks. The Lions rarely get quality contributions from low picks and most of their high picks rate as "middle of the pack" kind of players.

Today, I will concentrate on the worst of the worst. Later, I'll try to pick the best of the best and then I'll look at the first two rounds of the 2010 draft and tell you who I think has the biggest chance of being colossal busts.

For the most part, I only looked at the first three rounds, because all picks in round four and beyond are crapshoots. I also let most third round picks go, working under the same assumption, unless the player turned out to do especially bad. Anything you get from those rounds is gravy. I also took out anybody who busted out because of injuries...players like Reggie Brown, Mike Utley, Erik Andolsek, and even Bryan Westbrook.

10. Chuck Long - QB - First Round (#12 overall) 1986.
The first "Franchise Savior" in my transformation from Lions fan to Lions "obsessionist." Long came out of Iowa with huge fan fare. He threw his first pass for a TD on Monday Night Football...back when MNF meant something! But with all that pomp and circumstance, Long quickly fell back to the all too hard Earth of failure. Long managed only five years in the league, amassing a 4-17 record, 19 TD's, 28 INT's, a mere 3747 total yards and a career QB rating of 64.5

9. Kalimba Edwards - DE - Second Round (#35 overall) 2002.
The Lions were still reeling from losing Barry Sanders - FIVE YEARS EARLIER. They were still in desperate need of somebody to tote the rock. James Stewart was the big free agent signing, and he'd never finished a season, due to injuries. The Lions were staring down the barrel of Clinton Portis, a dual threat RB from the U, who'd miraculously fallen out of the first round...so Matt Millen selected...Kalimba Edwards, a DE from South Carolina that nobody had really heard of. Edwards is no longer in the league, Portis is.
Edwards managed 31 sacks in his seven years in the NFL...

8. Reggie Barrett - WR - Third Round (#58 overall) 1991.
In 1991, the Detroit Lions selected two 6'4 wide receivers with adequate to good speed to be paired up with Barry Sanders and 1990's #1 pick, Andre Ware to build one of the great offenses in modern football history! Too bad Reggie Barrett turned out to be nothing like Herman Moore.
Barrett could never get on the field. In two years, he managed to step on the field for only ten games, amassing the astounding statistics of 4 receptions for 67 yards and one lone touchdown.

7. Juan Roque - T - Second Round (#37 overall) 1997.
In looking at Juan Roque, he breaks one of my cardinal rules in compiling this list...he had injury problems...tons of them...but I allow for this position in the draft, because the Lions knew he had these problems before they even drafted him. They drafted a guy with two bad knees and were somehow surprised that he couldn't play with two bad knees. Roque underwent surgery in the middle of his first season and never really came back. He played in a total of three games in two season. This also brings to mind another article I'll do...how bad the Lions are at drafting offensive lineman.

6. Ray Roundtree - WR - Third Round (#58 overall) 1988.
Truthfully, I don't know much about Roundtree, I only vaguely remember him. But in researching this article, I now know why. In his only season in the league, Roundtree appeared in only four games, never catching a ball.

5. John Ford - WR - Second Round (#30 overall) 1989.
Who did the Lions draft after Barry Sanders? No, Rodney Peete was drafted in the sixth round. The first draft of Wayne Fontes put together an offense trio of Sanders, Peete, and John Ford. Ford supposedly was "faster than Jerry Rice." What a joke. Ford managed a single year in the league, playing only seven games, catching five balls for 56 yards and 0 TDs.

4. Reggie Rogers - DE - First Round (#7 overall) 1987.
Rogers was a stud. A quarterback eating monster coming out of college. When he got the the NFL? Not so much. In his four years in the NFL he managed only two sacks in fifteen games played. His career was destroyed when he killed somebody in a DUI accident.

3. Andre Ware - QB - First Round (#7 overall) 1990.
This pick is the main reason that I hate Joe Theisman. Theisman proclaimed that the Lions had gotten the "steal" of the draft. That Ware was the best quarterback coming out. He was a run and shoot quarterback who had racked up something like seven billion yards passing and a trillion touchdowns playing at Houston for Jack Pardee. The Lions had brought in Mouse Davis, June Jones, and the Run and Shoot the year before, so this pick was obvious. Except that two things happened, the Lions quickly started to abandon the Run & Shoot and Andre Ware couldn't the turf with a forward pass if he wanted to. How he managed to pile up all those stats is a complete mystery. In his four years, he managed six starts, a 3-3 record, 5 TDs, 8 INTs, and an abysmal QB rating of 63.5.

2. Mike Williams - WR - First Round (#10 overall) 2005.
This pick was Matt Millen at his finest. The third wide receiver in three years. A mammoth wide receiver in a tight end's body. He was slow, fat, and greedy. He had been forced to take a year off after hitching his wagon to the Maurice Clarett case. He hired an agent after a judge ruled that the NFL couldn't keep players out of the NFL on the basis of age...three months later the ruling was overturned and Williams was out in the cold, unable to go back to school or eligible to be drafted.
His career line so far, three years, 30 games, 44 receptions, 539 yards and 2 TDs--and about 7500 big macs. He's eaten himself out of the league twice.

1. Charles Rogers - WR - First Round (#2 overall) 2003.
In Rogers' first game, he managed 4 receptions for 38 yards and two touchdowns. His career numbers over three injury and drug plagued seasons, 15 games, 36 receptions, 440 yards, and 4 TD's. That is the definition of a shooting star. Two collar bone injuries destroyed Rogers and then he took to smoking pot....his entire career was really only the first five games of his first season.