Tag: Scott Mitchell

Akili Smith: #5 NFL Draft Bust

NFL teams took five quarterbacks with the first twelve picks of the 1999 Draft. The careers of those five QBs ran the gamut from great to horrendous.

#2 pick Donovan McNabb proved to be a borderline Hall of Famer.
#11 pick Daunte Culpepper made three Pro Bowls. 
#1 pick Tim Couch didn’t live up to the pick, but produced too much to be declared a bust.
#12 pick Cade McNown underachieved and became a bust.
#3 pick Akili Smith underachieved even more and became a Top 10 Bust.

I will discuss each of these quarterbacks in the following post. However, the last one listed deserves the most attention relative to this site. In 22 career games, Akili Smith threw for approximately 2,000 passing yards with five touchdowns and 13 interceptions. In addition, he had an abysmal 3-14 as a starter. As one of the worst quarterbacks ever drafted with an early first round pick, Smith has earned the #5 spot as a Top 10 NFL Draft Bust.

Andre Ware: T10B Honorable Mention (NFL)

With 4,700 yards and 46 touchdowns as the quarterback for the Houston Cougars, Andre Ware deservedly won the 1989 Heisman Trophy. In contrast, he categorically failed in the NFL with career totals of 1,100 yards and five touchdowns. Following a string of successful Heisman winners from 1985-1988 (e.g. Bo Jackson, Barry Sanders), Andre Ware served as the winner who reversed the trend for the next five years (e.g. Ty Detmer, Gino Torretta, Rashaan Salaam). The following post shows that Ware’s falloff from college to the pros qualifies him as a bust. However, he only started six NFL games so he never really got a fair shot. As such, he earned a T10B Honorable Mention instead of making the actual countdown.