Is Jamarcus Russell The Biggest Bust In NFL History?

Jamarcus Russell is easily the biggest bust in NFL history. Jamarcus Russell was drafted #1 overall in the 2007 NFL draft and never lived up to his potential. Every year we would hear about him coming to camp over weight and not ready to play. He is one of a few NFL QBs that had his completion percentage go down every year. It started off at 54.5% and finished at 48.8% in 2009. In his 3 year career he won a grand total of 9 games. He never finished a season with a passer rating higher than 78 and he sits at a 65.2 right now in his career. In a game where winning means everything and interceptions mean doom, Russell has definitely come up as a bust. If the Raiders were to take Russell’s salary and spread it out over just his wins, they would be paying $6 mill a win. If we paid Payton Manning that much he would be the richest man in all of sports by far. I understand his career isn’t over and that he still may resurrect it, but if he continues to come into camp not ready to play then he will surely be labeled the biggest bust of all time. Sure there have been others that might come close, but none of them were paid $68 million over 6 years with $31.5 million guaranteed. He is also the quickest realeased QB to be drafted #1 overall and has the worst record of any QB drafted #1 overall. He is easily the biggest bust of all time if his career were to end now.

First off Russell’s career isn’t over yet. There have also been quite a few QBs that have been just as bad and then there are some other positional players. Ryan Leaf was drafted #2 overall in the same year Payton Manning was drafted. Everyone was calling Leaf the golden child and Payton the future bust. Well we see how that turned out. As for comparisions to Russell, well Leaf finished his career with a 50.0 passing rating and never topped 58.0. Russell is higher than that for his career and they played the same amount of years. For those disputing the last statement, Leaf didn’t do anything in 1999 so you can’t count that as a 4th year for him. When we look at wins, Leaf also only won 6 in those 3 years which is behind the 9 of Russell. Let’s also not forget the mental breakdown and his off the field problems that have happened recently. There is also Tim Couch, who was taken #2 overall by the Cleveland Browns. If we want to look at non QBs then Tony Mandarich has been labeled by many to be the biggest bust of all time. Especially after ESPN aired the spot on steriods and how he was using them. Overall though, I would still probably give it to Ryan Leaf. Not only was he a bust on the field, but he was a huge bust off the field.