This man was taking a little joyride on his moped when he got into an accident. He was never able to fully recover from that accident, and his career ended only three years later. Long's first career pass was a yard touchdown. After that, everything went down the drain.
His best career season saw him throw nine more interceptions than touchdowns. Yeah, that is pretty bad. That clearly didn't happen, as Reynolds only recorded three sacks in his entire NFL career. Tommy Vardell would have had a very fine career had he been drafted later in the first round.
It would have been an incredible career had a team waited until the fifth or sixth round to draft him. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, as Vardell went ninth to the Cleveland Browns.
With the ninth pick in the first round, you're looking for a franchise changer, not a solid blocking fullback. Two things that make you a bigger NFL bust than anyone is attitude and lack of work ethic. David Terrell had more of those two things than anyone else in the NFL during his time. Terrell could never make it as a player for the Chicago Bears and failed with two other teams before retiring. He attempted one last comeback in , but was beaten out by Amani Toomer.
This is even more true when only one of those quarterbacks is drafted before you. Unfortunately, Blackledge didn't end up having anywhere nearly as productive a career as those other three quarterbacks. Character issues can derail an NFL career quickly, and Lawrence Phillips had more character issues than career rushing yards that's 1, issues, by the way.
Phillips simply couldn't stay out of the direct eyesight of the law. After only a few years in the league, Phillips found himself in trouble with the law again. He is currently serving a rather lengthy prison sentence. Simply put, Enis couldn't consistently perform for the Chicago Bears. He ended his career with a mere 1, rushing yards and four career rushing touchdowns. There are people who enjoy gambling for fun and there are people who enjoy gambling for sport. The problem with being a professional athlete and gambling for sport is that you often find yourself gambling on games that you shouldn't be.
His addiction reached an all-time high when he was recently arrested for theft. That is what the Cincinnati Bengals did with Akili Smith, and what they were rewarded with was a Smith simply couldn't understand the more complex playbook of the NFL, which was shown by his 13 interceptions and only five touchdowns. He had major attitude problems, distanced teammates and consistently got into arguments with the media. After retiring, Leaf was in constant trouble with the law and is now considered one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.
As the top overall draft pick, Russell was just pathetic during his short career with the Oakland Raiders. The biggest issue with Russell was his lack of motivation.
He wasn't motivated to study playbooks. He wasn't motivated to improve his craft in the offseason. Enjoy our content? For Davis, who fancied himself an unorthodox thinker -- he was very proud of having selected a punter, Ray Guy a future Hall of Famer! And even if he wasn't the best, I think Janikowski will be remembered as the strongest kicker in the history of the league. By the time draft day came around, even Gruden knew there was no point in arguing.
The Raiders executives set up in their conference room at the team facility in Alameda. Davis had his daily piece of chocolate cake and a water pitcher in front of him. Characteristically, Davis was reluctant to tip his hand publicly -- that was why no one from the Raiders had reached out to Janikowski or Healy ahead of time -- but inside the building, the choice felt inevitable. When the Raiders went on the clock, Kingdon says, Morris and Alexander were still available. The group went around the table once more, but it was only a formality.
Gruden was quiet. Allen called Healy at the golf club in Florida. Davis and the men in the conference room watched on TV as Tagliabue made it official. Sitting in the living room of his home in Jacksonville, Florida, he gives a little shiver when he recalls meeting Davis for the first time. Everything about Janikowski's rookie year was tough. He showed up for his first workouts after the draft unable to actually kick because he hurt his ankle playing pickup basketball.
Once the season began, he missed 10 of his 32 field goal attempts. He also missed curfew in New Orleans before a game against the Saints, prompting Gruden to quip to Papa on the team bus that "Janikowski is kicking for free today. Even getting Janikowski's contract done proved challenging. Healy recalls going to meet Allen for their first negotiation about six weeks after the draft, and the two men sat down to talk at a sports bar near the Dallas airport.
Suddenly, there was Janikowski's face on every TV screen in the place. Ultimately, Janikowski was acquitted of those charges, and despite a few more behavior issues, as well as some serious self-doubt -- "There was a point where I wasn't sure I'd make it out of that first season," he says -- he developed into a Raiders mainstay.
Davis believed in me," Janikowski says, and it is clearly true. In a profession marked by often-irrational change the Titans used four kickers last season alone , it wouldn't have been startling had Janikowski simply flamed out.
Davis, though -- perhaps because of vanity, perhaps because of the financial commitment he'd made to Janikowski -- stuck with his guy. Janikowski played 17 seasons with the Raiders and, not coincidentally, had the same holder, Shane Lechler, in 13 of them. He wasn't the most reliable kicker in the game, but his appearances were memorable. He made a yard field goal in , tying the NFL record at the time. He hit a yard field goal in degree weather in Cleveland, a kick that many say was even more impressive than the yarder.
He had just two missed kicks in eight postseason games for the Raiders, compared with 14 made ones -- including one in the Super Bowl in January a loss, he says, "I still think about today". He holds the league record for kicks made from 50 yards or longer, and in the game played the day after Davis died, he kicked four field goals and scored 13 of the team's 25 points in a victory.
It felt fitting. Never much of a locker room chatterbox, Janikowski was nonetheless revered. When Marquette King replaced Lechler as Janikowski's holder in , he immediately felt it was important to get on Janikowski's good side.
To try to ingratiate himself with the kicker, King showed up one day after Janikowski had made an important kick carrying a bunch of giant balloons that he gave to Janikowski as a celebratory gift.
For most of Janikowski's 17 years with the Raiders, the team flopped and flailed its way through seasons of absolute misery. But Janikowski was the constant. He played under 10 different coaches in Oakland, and his arc with the team was total: At the start, he was known for epic nights out with teammates, famously needing stitches in after passing out and cutting his face at a nightclub.
By the finish, after a couple of wake-up calls that included a DUI charge and the maturity that comes with marriage and children, he was both a kicker and a living, breathing piece of the Raiders' institutional memory.
I thought it was going to be every year, 'Oh, we're going to the Super Bowl,'" Janikowski says. In some ways, the argument about Janikowski isn't really about him at all; it is about how you feel about the notion that any kicker could ever be considered a first-round success. After all, however amazing a kicker is, he might be on the field for or so of a team's snaps during any given season; an offensive lineman, by comparison, could participate in eight times that many plays, increasing his value simply by sheer use.
Yes, Janikowski was statistically better than Rackers overall, but was he five rounds better? Or Chad Pennington, who went to the Jets right after him? Or -- and this is definitely unfair -- Tom Brady, who famously lasted until the sixth round himself? What if the Raiders had just stuck with Nedney, who went on to kick quite well in the NFL for 10 more seasons? These are the debates that never end, and in many ways, it couldn't matter less.
Davis was happy with the pick, and Amy Trask, who was Oakland's chief executive from to , says there is no doubt that the Raiders, writ large, were more than satisfied. Janikowski, for his part, has little interest in considering the issue. Two decades on, with a wife and three girls and an aching back that will probably need surgery someday, he just doesn't see the point in worrying about whether he was blessed or cursed when the Raiders took him in the first round.
Skip to main content Skip to navigation. A kicker?! At 17?! What is the highest draft pick for a kicker? Janikowski, 41, was taken by the Oakland Raiders withthe 17th overall pick in the NFL draft —one of three kickers in history to be taken in the firstround Russell Erxleben in and Charlie Gogolak in arethe others.
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Who drafted a kicker? Faiz Harismendy Pundit. Who are the best kickers in the NFL? Jason Hanson. Gary Anderson. Stephen Gostkowski. Jan Stenerud. Adam Vinatieri. George Blanda. Morten Andersen. Lou Groza. Cleveland , ' Antton Bossi Pundit. Who was the best punter of all time? Guy topped 44, punting yards over his career between 1, punts Jeff Feagles, who punted for an all - time best 1, punts over 12 seasons to lead all others in NFLhistory with 71, yards. Veredas Zhitomirsky Pundit.
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