Each Team’s Worst Draft Class of the Last 10 Years

No one ever has a perfect NFL Draft. Even the Saints’ 2017 class, famously the best in a generation of football, included a sixth-round pick spend on Al-Quadin Muhammad, who only played four games in New Orleans and is now with his fifth team. You find me a draft class with no misses, and I’ll find you a team that is gearing up to play in the Super Bowl in a couple years.

Sometimes, though, a team does have a perfectly imperfect draft.

It happens. Sometimes a team has its sights set on the right player only to see him snaked before their pick. Or what looked like the right player turns wrong. Or injury kills what would have been a good career. Or a team is just bad at drafting. There are any number of reasons a single pick can go wrong, and sometimes — thankfully not that often, but sometimes — a team’s entire haul for a single draft goes the wrong way, and the team has to just turn the page.

After picking out each NFL team’s best draft class of the last decade Thursday, today I’m identifying each team’s worst. As I did with the best draft classes, I’ve graded every draft class by three standards, 1-5 in each:

• First-round performance. The first round is obviously where the biggest names get taken, so it has an outsized role in determining the success or failure of a draft class.
• Success up and down the draft board. Get a great player early in the draft, you made one good pick. And if that’s where the success ends, then it’s a bad bunch with one good apple. A good draft class needs multiple good picks up and down the list.
• Late value, or lack thereof. Not many teams will appear on this list that found multi-year starters on Day 3. Rounds 4-7 of the draft are lottery-ticket time, and teams that find winning lottery tickets don’t have bad classes.

One important (and probably obvious?) caveat: The more recent the draft class, the less I am counting bad picks against them. A bad pick in 2024 might be an actual bust, or it might just be a player who needs a little time to develop, and five years from now we’ll see him as a winning pick. If a 2015 pick didn’t work out, the report cards are back. 2024? They get an I for incomplete. So there will be 2023 and 2024 draft classes below, but if it was ever close, I opted for the older draft class.

With that said, let’s look at the draft classes.

Each Team’s Worst Draft Class, 2015-2024

Arizona Cardinals: 2016

Score: 3

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

Six players. No hardware. No extensions. A combined total of 11 seasons with the Cardinals. One player who spent even a season as a team’s starter, in fourth-rounder Evan Boehm, and even he was only a starter for eight out of 16 games. The good news is there was only one pick in the first two rounds (Robert Nkemdiche, at 29) and two in the top 125, but there was nothing remotely resembling a hit here.

Atlanta Falcons: 2024

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 3
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

I hate putting a 2024 draft class in here, especially one where a team got what appears to be its starting quarterback. But so far, we have five games out of Michael Penix Jr. where he looked pretty good (not great), and then almost nothing out of the rest of the class. Four of the seven non-Penix picks played two games or fewer as a rookie, no one but Penix started so much as a game. Penix was the only one to top 160 snaps on offense or defense, and even he only got to 230. Maybe the quarterback makes this pick look bad all by himself soon, but for now, the Falcons got very little out of 2024.

Baltimore Ravens: 2023

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 3
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

Our first team with a Pro Bowler. The Ravens are probably perfectly happy with the Zay Flowers pick at 1.22, even if he doesn’t (yet?) look like a superstar. But for a team that has a lot of hits in its recent draft history, the rest of the 2023 haul does not offer many of them. Trenton Simpson is the only one who has become a starter, and he put up a sub-60.0 PFF grade in the process.

Buffalo Bills: 2015

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 1

No first-round pick is costly here (and we’re just judging picks actually made, not trades to add/lose picks or anything else), but even without that, the only thing resembling a success is Ronald Darby in the second. Karlos Williams kind of looked like a find in the fifth round — he scored in each of his first seven career games — but after showing up to 2016 camp out of shape and ultimately getting suspended three times for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy, he never played after 2015.

Carolina Panthers: 2023

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 3
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

Like with Atlanta’s Michael Penix Jr. pick, this one could look bad pretty quickly if Bryce Young’s development late last season really did portend a breakout. But the Panthers have gotten almost nothing out of the rest of this class, with Jonathan Mingo so bad he was shipped to Dallas last year, Jammie Robinson already gone as well, and DJ Johnson and Chandler Zavala not making their parks yet.

Chicago Bears: 2019

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 1

David Montgomery’s a stud, even if he isn’t a Frankenstein-like amalgamation of every good running back you’ve ever seen (and Sony Michel). And getting him in the third round is great. But a third-round running back who doesn’t really break out until he leaves your team can’t be the crown jewel of a draft class, and here it’s not even close. Kerrith Whyte Jr. and Stephen Denmark never made the Bears, Riley Ridley (Calvin Ridley’s brother) ended his career with 10 receptions, and while Duke Shelley has hung around the league, he’s had all of 11 starts and 1 interception in six years.

Cincinnati Bengals: 2019

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 3
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 1

This is one of the biggest draft classes in this space, and it’s one that still has several active players despite it being six full seasons ago now. But “still here, I guess” is the biggest praise most of these picks can get. Drew Sample and Germaine Pratt are the longest-tenured Bengals, but they (Sample in particular) haven’t actually done a lot. Jonah Williams is a fine guard, but he was always out of place in Cincinnati. It’s a draft that was light on outright busts, but it was maybe even lighter on outright hits.

Cleveland Browns: 2023

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

Cedric Tillman spent a couple weeks as an exciting breakout candidate last year, when he went 21-255-3 on 32 targets over three games in Weeks 7-9, but that’s nearly half of his career yardage and all of his career touchdowns. And he’s the prize here, unless you think it’s 46.4-PFF-grade-last-year Dawand Jones. The Browns didn’t pick until the third round in 2023, so they didn’t get many bites at the apple, but the bites they did get had worms in them.

Dallas Cowboys: 2023

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

DeMarvion Overshown was on a good run last year before a bad knee injury last year cost him the rest of 2024 and will likely cost him a chunk of 2025. And otherwise, what’s the prize here? The skill players (Luke Schoonmaker, Deuce Vaughn, Jalen Brooks) have combined for barely 700 yards. Mazi Smith is a starter, and that’s good, but his PFF grade was in the 30s last year.

Denver Broncos: 2023

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 1

A first-team All Pro! Marvin Mims Jr. made it as a returner, but still. And he made the second team as a rookie in 2023. He’s a hit, even if his actual play on offense as opposed to special teams has been spotty. But the team hasn’t gotten much of anything after Mims, depending on how much stock you put in Riley Moss’ quasi-breakout last year.

Detroit Lions: 2024

Score: 2

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

It’s too early to call this draft class a bust, especially given how many injuries the Lions dealt with last year, but after being one of the best-drafting teams in the league for most of the last decade, the Lions struggled last year. Terrion Arnold was a full-time player but struggled, and Christian Mahogany was the only other Lions draft pick last year to start even a single game — Week 16 against the Bears, accounting for 65 of his 75 offense snaps as a rookie. The non-Arnold picks combined for 323 snaps on offense and defense.

Green Bay Packers: 2021

Score: 7

Grades:

• First Round: 3
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

The Packers are such a weird team. Identifying their best class in the last decade was hard (Jordan Love in 2020, but then a bunch of whiffs otherwise? A bunch of receivers in 2023 but Lukas Van Ness in the first? Jaire Alexander and not much else in 2018?) because they rarely nail a draft, but also, finding their worst year is hard as well. Just a bunch of middling draft classes. Sixth-round LB Isaiah McDuffie is the only player from 2021 still on the Packers, and while he’s grown into a starter for the team, it took all four of his years to get there. Otherwise, it’s a bunch of guys who didn’t do a lot in Green Bay and then left.

Houston Texans: 2018

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 1

Justin Reid turned out to be a very good pick as a third-rounder, even if he left Houston at his first opportunity. But the Texans didn’t have a first- or second-round pick in 2018, and everything after Reid fell pretty flat, with the possible exception of workaday tight end Jordan Akins.

I do love this note, though: Keke Coutee played 23 games for the Texans. Against the Colts, he averaged 6.8 receptions on 9.0 targets for 82.0 yards in four games, putting up 17.8 PPR points per game. Against everyone else, he averaged 2.9 receptions on 4.3 targets, 32.3 yards and 7.0 PPR points. When the Texans waived Coutee, guess which team took a chance on him!

Indianapolis Colts: 2015

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 1

The Phillip Dorsett II pick in 2015 was mocked approximately from the minute it was announced, and his Colts tenure is only remembered because Indy ultimately turned him into Jacoby Brissett (who was no great shakes there himself). Dorsett has bounced around the league ever since, but he never had a 600-yard season and appears to be done after not finding a team in 2024. Henry Anderson was a starter sporadically, but he only lasted three years in Indianapolis. Clayton Geathers is the only pick from 2015 to make it more than four years with the Colts.

Jacksonville Jaguars: 2020

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 1

When you have one swing in the first round and miss, it’s frustrating, but hey, whatever, people miss. But when you have two bites at the apple and still come up with nothing, that’s particularly painful. And the Jags missed badly in 2020, with C.J. Henderson getting shipped out of town midway through his second season and K’Lavon Chaisson starting only 11 games in four years in Jacksonville. Second-rounder Laviska Shenault Jr. didn’t fare much better. Tanking the first two rounds like that is hard to come back from, and rest assured, despite nine more picks, the Jags did not. Third-rounder DaVon Hamilton is still hanging around, but he’s never really become a guy.

Kansas City Chiefs: 2018

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 2

When you don’t have a first-round pick, you kind of need to nail your second-rounder. And when that second-rounder struggles as a rookie, misses most of his second year to injury and suspension and gets waived before his third year, never to appear in the NFL again, you’ve got a problem. Derrick Nnadi had a nice run in Kansas City before leaving for the Jets this offseason, but otherwise it was a whiff of a draft.

Las Vegas Raiders: 2022

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 2

The Raiders’ 2022 class came out with the same overall point total in our grading system as the 2020 class, but then the Raiders didn’t have a first- or second-round pick in 2022. No such luck in 2020, when the Raiders took both Henry Ruggs III and Damon Arnette in the first round and had both flame out for off-field reasons before the end of their second season in the NFL. And then following that with Lynn Bowden Jr., Bryan Edwards and Tanner Muse on Day 2 (Bowden and Muse never played for the Raiders) makes it even worse. Getting some value out of John Simpson and Amik Robertson in the fourth round helps a little, but not nearly enough.

Los Angeles Chargers: 2023

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

Quentin Johnston has had a very weird start to is career — 10 touchdowns in his first two years is better than most players — but it definitely skews far more to the disappointing side. Second-rounder Tuli Tuipulotu have gotten the most playing time out of the 2023 class, but neither has become a star. Derius Davis has been a fine return man out of the fourth round, and Scott Matlock became a part-time two-way player under Jim Harbaugh, but there’s no clear bright spot.

Los Angeles Rams: 2021

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

Credit to Tutu Atwell — he and Dexter McCluster are the only players listed at 5-foot-9 or shorter and under 170 pounds to top 1,000 yards since 2000. He’s defied expectations for someone his size, and it resulted in an extension this offseason. So for his size, he’s definitely been a success. As the team’s first pick in 2021, a second-rounder who went before guys like Nico Collins and Amon-Ra St. Brown, he’s been … fine. Acceptable. The Rams also found guys who spent time as starters in Ernest Jones IV and Bobby Brown III, but Jones only made it three seasons in LA and Brown left this offseason. The class gets worse from there.

Miami Dolphins: 2022

Score: 3

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

The Dolphins got three entire starts out of the 2022 class, and all three were Skylar Thompson’s disappointing work in relief of the injured Tua Tagovailoa. Erik Ezukanma has 3 receiving yards in three seasons, and the linebackers (Channing Tindall and Cameron Goode) have combined for 109 defensive snaps in three years.

Minnesota Vikings: 2016

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 3

“Former first-round pick” carries so much weight, because Laquon Treadwell is on his sixth NFL team despite averaging under 150 yards per season and scoring 5 career touchdowns. Teams can’t quit him despite every piece of evidence saying they should. Mackensie Alexander spent one year as a starter, but it came after he left Minnesota for Cincinnati. Moritz Böhringer had a lot of hype as the first European player drafted without playing college ball, but it didn’t work out — he never played an NFL game. The bright spot is that the selection of Jayron Kearse in the seventh round, 244^th overall out of 253, and even he didn’t become a relevant player until his post-Vikings days.

New England Patriots: 2019

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 2

The Pats’ 2017 class of Derek Rivers, Antonio Garcia, Deatrich Wise Jr. and Conor McDermott was probably worse, but then that was only four picks and nothing before the third. This class featured 10 picks and gave them a semi-productive running back in Damien Harris and an All-Pro punter in Jake Bailey, but the Pats did have picks in the first two rounds and turned them into busts N’Keal Harry and Joejuan Williams, which offsets the mild hits of Harris, Bailey and Chase Winovich.

New Orleans Saints: 2023

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

Bryan Bresee has garnered plenty of playing time in his two seasons, but his PFF grades have been … lacking, to say the least. He’s the only member of the Saints’ 2023 class to be a starter. Kendre Miller has been talked about more than anyone else, but it’s mostly been regarding the fact that he’s injured. Jake Haener got a few appearances last year, but he managed a 62.6 passer rating and 14.4 QBR. Hard to find bright spots.

New York Giants: 2021

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 1

The Jaguars and Urban Meyer famously wanted Kadarius Toney in Round 1 before the Giants took him and settled for Travis Etienne Jr. And that’s pretty much the only thing that worked out for Meyer’s Jags, because while Etienne has his flaws, he’s been worlds better than Toney, who had 189 yards in Week 5 of Week 2021 and 571 in 34 games for his career otherwise, a career that is likely over after he flamed out in Kansas City and Cleveland and then was arrested in February. Second-rounder Azeez Ojulari started his Giants tenure hot but ultimately didn’t do much before leaving for the Eagles this offseason. And after that … not much.

New York Jets: 2020

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 3

The Jets have several bad drafts to pick from in the last decade. They found a couple starters in 2018, but then the bust of Sam Darnold is pretty glaring. They tried on Christian Hackenberg in 2016 and failed then, too. Leonard Williams was a good pick in 2015, and they could have taken the rest of the weekend off. Will McDonald IV and Joe Tippmann have been fine from 2023, but not much more, and the rest of the class has been a strikeout. But it’s 2020 we’ll go with here, because the bright spot is probably Mekhi Becton, and even he never became much of anything for the Jets. Bryce Hall spent some time as a starter, and Braden Mann has been a fine punter, but no one here counts as a big win.

Philadelphia Eagles: 2019

Score: 6

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 1

The Eagles have not been shy about taking offensive linemen in the draft, even before they might need one. It’s generally worked out pretty well. But Andre Dillard is an exception — the Eagles got only nine starts over four years out of him before he started bouncing around, to Tennessee then Green Bay and now on the free agent market. It was a failed pick. J.J. Arcega-Whiteside was famously a bust, while Shareef Miller and Clayton Thorson combined for 1 career game. So that leaves Miles Sanders as the prize, and sure, he had a nice Eagles career — particularly his 1,269-yard, 11-touchdown 2022 — but a second-tier running back can’t be the prize of a draft class.

Pittsburgh Steelers: 2024

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 3
• Late Value: 2

The Steelers have a bunch of candidates here. In 2015, they got Bud Dupree and almost literally nothing else. In 2020, they didn’t have a first-rounder, and second-rounder Chase Claypool proved to be a bit of a failure eventually, but he got 9 touchdowns as a rookie, and Alex Highsmith and Kevin Dotson have been been OK. Last year’s first-rounder, Troy Fautanu, barely played, but Zach Frazier and Mason McCormick got lots of playing time. But I’ll go with 2022, where yes, the Steelers got George Pickens and he’s been fairly productive, but first-round QB Kenny Pickett was supposed to be the heir apparent to Ben Roethlisberger and instead threw 13 touchdowns in 25 games as a Steeler and now on is third team.

San Francisco 49ers: 2023

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 2

Not picking in the first or second rounds made this class an easy pick, and it’s even easier when you consider that the 49ers really didn’t find anyone in this draft. Ji’Ayir Brown’s been OK, but Jake Moody probably isn’t long for the kicking gig in San Francisco, and Cameron Latu still hasn’t played his first NFL game. That’s it for Day 2. Ronnie Bell scored three touchdowns in his 49ers tenure, but he only got to 90 yards and is now on the Lions.

Seattle Seahawks: 2021

Score: 3

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 1

Easiest call of the exercise. The Seahawks basically took the 2021 draft off, and Dee Eskridge — their only Day 1 or Day 2 pick — has 240 career scrimmage yards and has been only a so-so returner. Tre Brown and Stone Forsythe have been fine picks to land on in Day 3, but hardly enough to overcome a lost first three rounds.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 2016

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 2
• Value from Picks: 1
• Late Value: 2

Of course, Roberto Aguayo is the punch line of any draft analysis, with the Buccaneers not only taking a kicker in the second round but trading two picks for the right to move up to do so, and then only getting one bad season of kicking out of him. But the Buccaneers struck out elsewhere in 2016, getting very little success out of anyone after Round 1, and even first-rounder Vernon Hargreaves III went from a nice find in Round 1 to a near-punchline himself for the rest of his career.

Tennessee Titans: 2020

Score: 4

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 1

Isaiah Wilson is maybe the single worst first-round pick in the last decade, playing all of four NFL snaps, getting waived by the Dolphins for missing workouts and later getting suspended and arrested. Kristian Fulton worked out marginally well in the second round, but no one in the third round or later has ever really been relevant.

Washington Commanders: 2023

Score: 5

Grades:

• First Round: 1
• Value from Picks: 2
• Late Value: 2

It’s not just that Emmanuel Forbes Jr. was one of the worst corners in the league in his year and a half in Washington before the team cut bait and moved on. It’s that he went exactly one pick before Christian Gonzalez, a player who has already become a star at the same position. Just an out-and-out disaster. We’re only two years removed from the 2023 draft, and the only players left on the Washington roster are third-string RB Chris Rodriguez Jr., Andre Jones Jr. (who hasn’t yet played 200 defensive snaps) and Quan Martin, who did become a starter in 2024 but didn’t manage even a 60.0 PFF grade.