Biggest Bills Bust Post 1980

[GunnerBill]

It's McCargo for me. Why? Because it was the holy trinity:

 

1 - a trade up, giving up TWO day 2 picks for the right take him late in the 1st;

2 - a huge reach on an average prospect, awful talent evaluation;

3 - a bad strategic decision to waste all that resource on a non-premium position..... spending a 1st and trading up to do so on a run stuffing defensive tackle.

 

He started ONE game for the Bills in 5 seasons. Dreadful in every way. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by GunnerBill

[Brandon]

20 minutes ago, Dr. K said:

Williams was a number 4 pick, and thus was more of a disappointment than Maybin. 

 

On the other hand,  at least they got close to 50 starts out of Mike Williams,  even if he wasn't very good.

[Sammy Watkins' Rib]

I would say Williams because he was top 3 pick. Couldn't hack it at tackle. Figured he could have kicked inside to guard and at least had a career there but nope. And did he have an even shorter NFL career than Maybin? 

[dollars 2 donuts]

34 minutes ago, NoHuddleKelly12 said:

That’s a doozy on this Monday morn…ironically, I’d wager without looking it up that dollars to donuts his YPC still on par with what our run game was doing under Dabs’ tenure outside of Allen? 🧐

 

 

You mock me, Sir?

 

GOOD!  Your homespun jocularity and good natured ribbing is one of the joys of the offseason and makes the time pass easily as we wait incessantly for the 2022 draft, which by the way and for the record is only 5,000 short hours from now, give or take a year!

 

😂

 

GO BILLS, HUDS!

 

[CountDorkula]

Sir Samuel Watkins.....

[Motorin']

9 hours ago, IronMaidenBills said:

While I think Losman was bad, I don’t feel like he was talentless. I feel like he was ruined to some extent. He had a mean long ball, but sadly he couldn’t piece it together. Those Evans TDs were beautiful. 

 

That's all true. He wasn't the worst bust in terms of being the worst player, but in my opinion his failure had the biggest impact on cementing the legacy and culture of draught years. 

[wppete]

I’m saying EJ only because he was a 1st round pick at QB and was below average at best. Sorry to say, I liked him, seemed like a great guy. 
 

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by wppete

[First Round Bust]

remember that hunter was taken before kelly -imagine the benefit of getting a decent player, let alone all-pro or star level for that pick during the super bowl era...

[Motorin']

35 minutes ago, chris heff said:

Losman and Rogers were two different draft classes. Losman was 2004 and Rogers was 2005.

 

That's exactly what I said. The move up to get Losman in 04' cost us our 1st round pick in 05' (pick 20) when Rodgers slid all the way to pick 24.

 

Little known fact, 2005 was the last year the Bills would pick as late as 20th in the draft until 2020, when we traded our 1st round pick for Stefan Diggs. 

 

[RoyBatty is alive]

I think a lot of these votes have a lot of "recency bias".  One guy I had to look up was Tuttle so I voted for him.   Tuttle was a Bill back in 1982, another first round bust few can even remember.

[Thurman#1]

Mike Williams.

 

Without saying his name, Ross Tucker has talked a lot about a player who because of his draft spot and large salary the coaching staff couldn't get to do anything.

[TC in St. Louis]

Booker had Guillian Barre syndrome, which left him paralyzed for a while.  Not a whiff.  Just horrible luck.  

 

The worst pick for me was taking Torrell Troupe the pick before the Pats took Gronk.  Slight advantage Gronk.  

[Paup 1995MVP]

11 hours ago, IronMaidenBills said:

I’m going to go with “modern” times NFL simply because prior to 1980, talent was fairly sporadic and a little more “forgiving” . Nowadays it’s fairly inexcusable to miss horribly on a 1st round pick. So who gets your vote as worse draft pick? 

Maybin was incredibly brutal to watch, but Williams and Flowers were ultra bad as well. 

 

 

First I love your user name bro.  Anything heavy metal and then combining with the Bills is top notch!!  All three of those guys were brutal.  Mike Williams was so soft to play O line.  Not sure what happened there.  Guy had no drive no desire.  Flowers was lousy.  And Maybin was laughable how small he was to be playing rush end.  He had limited production in college also.  It should not be that hard to find players who are going to be at least decent (not superstar) pro football players if that is what you do all day for a living.  

[BillsfaninChicago]

6 hours ago, SoTier said:

 

What makes you think that Aaron Rodgers would have been anything but a mediocre QB on the Bills in the 2005-2009 period?  Mularkey couldn't get much out of Pro Bowler Drew Bledsoe in 2004-2005 and Jauron seemed to have a pathological dislike for talented players who didn't toe his play-not-to-lose-by-too-much line.  Captain Checkdown Trent Edwards was Juaron's style QB.  He banished Beast Mode Marshawn Lynch to his "doghouse" in 2009 when Lynch was the only offense the Bills had.  Rodgers would have clashed with Jauron instantly simply because he wanted to win football games not play not to lose them by too much.

I would have taken Rodgers,our 2004 2nd, and 5th over Losman. The amount we gave up for him was brutal.  We actually had an effective offense as well with Mularkey in 2004 which would have likely fit Rodgers playing style. We regressed from coming within a game of making the playoffs in 2004 to a proverbial tire fire in 2005 when we tried to give JP the reins and that was the end of the MM tenure as head coach which lead us to the height of the drought days with Jauron. History would have been different had we not moved up for the “4th best QB in the draft”.

Edited April 25, 2022 by BillsfaninChicago

[Milanos Milano]

2 minutes ago, Paup 1995MVP said:

First I love your user name bro.  Anything heavy metal and then combining with the Bills is top notch!!  All three of those guys were brutal.  Mike Williams was so soft to play O line.  Not sure what happened there.  Guy had no drive no desire.  Flowers was lousy.  And Maybin was laughable how small he was to be playing rush end.  He had limited production in college also.  It should not be that hard to find players who are going to be at least decent (not superstar) pro football players if that is what you do all day for a living.  

It’s honestly embarrassing. Pretty much the reason we have sucked for decades. As much as I rag on Beane (He can do better), it’s amazing the level of play differences. 

[BMWR100RT]

Manuel #1. Mostly because the regime wasted two #1s on Sammy Watkins the next year to try and prove they hadn't reached for EJ. So I look at it as two wasted #1 picks. Tell me where my logic is wrong.  

[Brand J]

2 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

It's McCargo for me. Why? Because it was the holy trinity:

 

1 - a trade up, giving up TWO day 2 picks for the right take him late in the 1st;

2 - a huge reach on an average prospect, awful talent evaluation;

3 - a bad strategic decision to waste all that resource on a non-premium position..... spending a 1st and trading up to do so on a run stuffing defensive tackle.

 

He started ONE game for the Bills in 5 seasons. Dreadful in every way. 

Also scary the Bills wanted a DT that badly that they’d give up so much in a trade up when board/fan favorite Haloti Ngata was available earlier in the round. They inexplicably chose Donte Whitner at 8th overall I believe, talk about a comedy of errors. Ngata said years later he was sure he’d be a Buffalo Bill.

[Milanos Milano]

14 minutes ago, BMWR100RT said:

Manuel #1. Mostly because the regime wasted two #1s on Sammy Watkins the next year to try and prove they hadn't reached for EJ. So I look at it as two wasted #1 picks. Tell me where my logic is wrong.  

It’s why I included him in the poll. I almost included Losman, but at least he had a 3k season before everything went into the toilet. He really only had Lee Evans to work with and when he did, he made things happen. The rest of the team was garbage and he sustained a cheap shot. He was still bad, but I didn’t think he was Manuel bad. 

[st pete gogolak]

I know the rule is post - 1980 but I always go to Fred Swendson in these types of polls.  Fred was Walt Patulski's running mate at DE at Norte Dame and was our #3 round pick in 1972 draft.  We had first pick in each round and with less teams, first pick in third round back then was pick #53.  Today that would basically be mid second round pick.  Fred barely made it out of his first training camp and was cut before opening day.  To my knowledge, never played a down in the NFL.  Top that!

[Milanos Milano]

16 minutes ago, JayBaller10 said:

Also scary the Bills wanted a DT that badly that they’d give up so much in a trade up when board/fan favorite Haloti Ngata was available earlier in the round. They inexplicably chose Donte Whitner at 8th overall I believe, talk about a comedy of errors. Ngata said years later he was sure he’d be a Buffalo Bill.

Lol good ol Wiffner. I almost included him as well, but he wasn’t as terrible as the other choices I listed. 

Edited April 25, 2022 by IronMaidenBills