The Least Successful First-Round Teams in the NFL Draft the Last 10 Years

We’re a few weeks away from the 2025 NFL Draft, where the fortunes of 32 teams and a few hundred players will start to take shape. In theory, this is kind of a blank slate — nothing you’ve done before matters when it comes to picking a player, and all that matters is how well you can select a guy and what you do with him afterward.

In reality, though … some teams suck at this.

That’s a little harsh, but it’s true that out of 32 teams, someone has to be the worst at picking players over the long run, and someone has to be the best. So today and tomorrow, I’ll be looking at the teams with the most (and least) first-round success in the last decade.

Obviously there’s more than a little subjectivity here, and there are some considerations beyond just player performance to consider. A team that regularly picks in the top 10 has a higher threshold to meet for success than a team regularly picking in the late 20s, for example.

A couple of notes: First, this is just about the players selected. I’m not evaluating trade-ups/trade-downs, how much a team gave up to make a pick. This is just “You selected a player, how’d he do?” Second, this is only how players perform(ed) in their original tenure with the team that drafted them. Sam Darnold made the Pro Bowl and got MVP votes last year with the Vikings; the Jets get absolutely no credit for that. Third, there is not much in the way of objective criteria here, just because it’s extremely hard to compare a tackle drafted eighth to a wide receiver drafted 27^th to a quarterback drafted second. But if you look at all the first-round picks as a group, successes and failures definitely start to come into focus.

It’s a countdown — the 16 least successful teams of the last decade today. Friday, I’ll look at the 16 doing the best.

For each team, I’ll list their average first-round pick (so a hypothetical team that picked first in every draft would average 1.0) just to show the quality of a team’s average pick. I’ll also list the percentage of possible games a team could have gotten (so if you drafted a guy in 2015 and got 10 years of him playing every game, 164 out of 164, that’s 100%).

The Least Successful Teams in the First Round of the Draft, 2015-2024

32. Chicago Bears

Average pick: 7.1 (No. 32)
Percentage of games: 42.4% (No. 32)

The Bears’ average first-round pick over the last decade has roughly seventh overall. They’re the only team averaging a pick better than 10^th, and the team averaging 10^th is the famously eff-them-picks Rams, who either pick early or don’t bother. When they have picked (the Bears didn’t select in the first round in 2019, 2020 or 2022), the Bears haven’t drafted worse than 11^th since 2014, outside our sample. Despite that, the Bears have gotten less playing time from those first-rounders than any other, with Kevin White (seventh overall in 2015) the most notable bust. Three of these picks went to quarterbacks, with Mitchell Trubisky and Justin Fields definitely coming up short and the jury still out on Caleb Williams.

31. Las Vegas Raiders

Average pick: 15.0 (No. 20)
Percentage of games: 43.6% (No. 29)

The Raiders aren’t without their successes — Amari Cooper was good for a bit, Josh Jacobs had a nice run, Kolton Miller developed into a good lineman, Brock Bowers set records as a rookie last year. But the failures have been stark. Their 2020 first-round haul of Henry Ruggs III and Damon Arnette could scarcely have gone worse, and Gareon Conley (2017 pick, 2.5 seasons with the Raiders and now out of football) and Alex Leatherwood (2021, one season in Vegas, four games in Chicago, career over) weren’t home runs either.

30. Tennessee Titans

Average pick: 14.6 (No. 21)
Percentage of games: 43.3% (No. 31)

Jack Conklin was very good as a Titan, but the team only got four years out of him. But he was the bright spot, with notable failed picks like Caleb Farley (injuries and ineffectiveness limited him to 12 games and two starts as a Titan) and Isaiah Wilson (one NFL game) pulling the whole group down.

29. New England Patriots

Average pick: 22.8 (No. 4)
Percentage of games: 43.4% (No. 30)

The Patriots regularly picking near the bottom of the first round until recently made it all the more understandable that their recent first-round draft history is … shall we say spotty. They’ve only gotten two Pro Bowls in the first round in the last decade — Drake Maye last year, whose career isn’t fleshed out enough to overcome the rest of the group, and Mac Jones, who made the Pro Bowl as a rookie and then saw his prospects disintegrate. Maye and Christian Gonzalez in the last two years show things could be turning around, though.

28. Arizona Cardinals

Average pick: 13.8 (No. 27)
Percentage of games: 51.8% (No. 20)

How much credit does a team get when it picks first overall and there’s a universally agreed-upon first overall pick? Because if the Cardinals get points for taking Kyler Murray, their first-round history looks stronger. But if the Murray pick in 2019 is treated like “Come on, who wouldn’t have taken him?”, then we’re looking at picks like Josh Rosen (gone in a year) and Robert Nkemdiche (didn’t finish out his first contract), plus the hopes that Marvin Harrison Jr. develops after a middling rookie year.

27. New York Jets

Average pick: 10.1 (No. 30)
Percentage of games: 52.8% (No. 19)

Only the Rams and Bears have averaged a higher first-round pick in the last decade than the Jets, who have picked second, third, third, fourth, sixth and sixth in that time, and today only have Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner to show from that group of top-six picks. The Gardner-Garrett Wilson–Jermaine Johnson first round from 2022 is one heck of a bright spot, but whiffing on two quarterbacks (Zach Wilson, Sam Darnold) drags them down.

26. New York Giants

Average pick: 12.5 (No. 28)
Percentage of games: 50.4% (No. 21)

The Q rating of the Giants’ various first-rounders over the last decade is pretty high, but their fame-to-production ratio is lower than you’ll find just about anywhere. Saquon Barkley was a hit in a vacuum, but a running back at second overall when guys like Denzel Ward, Quenton Nelson, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were later in that first round is a rough look, especially when it led to them reaching for Daniel Jones at sixth overall the next year. Add in the blow-up that was Kadarius Toney in 2021, and the Giants have struggled.

25. Seattle Seahawks

Average pick: 20.5 (No. 8)
Percentage of games: 57.7% (No. 14)

The Seahawks’ 2023 first-round haul (Devon Witherspoon, Jaxon Smith-Njigba) saves them here, because the rest of their recent first-round is dotted with … not quite failures, but a bunch of just-a-guys. Their Legion of Boom-era success meant the Seahawks generally drafted late in the first round (their didn’t pick before 27^th any year between 2013 and 2021) helps explain their relative failure, but still, not a lot of hits there.

24. Cincinnati Bengals

Average pick: 16.9 (No. 11)
Percentage of games: 48.0% (No. 27)

The Bengals crushed the draft in 2020-2021 with Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase, two of the handful of best players in the league. And the fact that they rank this low despite that really tells you a lot about how the rest of the last decade has gone. John Ross and Billy Price took the group about as far in the wrong direction as Burrow and Chase did in the right one.

23. San Francisco 49ers

Average pick: 15.5 (No. 16)
Percentage of games: 45.7% (No. 28)

The 49ers have had some nice hits in the last decade — DeForest Buckner was good, Nick Bosa has been great, Brandon Aiyuk has popped, even Ricky Pearsall looks like a nice play so far. But the misses have been significant. The 2017 haul of Solomon Thomas (third, ahead of Christian McCaffrey, Patrick Mahomes and more) and Reuben Foster (16 games in his career) set them back, and then of course there was the epic failure of Trey Lance, who they took third overall in 2021 and gave up their next two first-rounders for the right to do so.

22. Jacksonville Jaguars

Average pick: 13.9 (No. 25)
Percentage of games: 53.9% (No. 18)

It’s not that the Jaguars haven’t found good players in the draft as much as it is that the successful picks they have made haven’t hung around long enough. Jalen Ramsey was excellent, but he only lasted 3.5 years in Jacksonville before being traded away. Leonard Fournette only lasted three years in Jacksonville despite two 1,000-yard seasons. Dante Fowler Jr. is entering his 10^th season and his sixth team, but he didn’t even make it three seasons as a Jag. Even Trevor Lawrence, who was supposed to revolutionize the QB position, is basically an “eh, fine” quarterback at this point. Brian Thomas Jr. (albeit in one year) and Josh Hines-Allen are the success stories here.

21. Miami Dolphins

Average pick: 15.5 (No. 15)
Percentage of games: 60.3% (No. 12)

It’s great to hit on picks like Laremy Tunsil and Minkah Fitzpatrick It’s less great to feel the need to trade them away before they even reach their primes. Tua Tagovailoa and Jaylen Waddle are locked in as starters for Miami, but what are they? Tua is oft-injured and almost no one thinks he’s actually a franchise quarterback. Waddle looked like a superstar in his first and (especially) second seasons, but he has 1,758 yards and 6 touchdowns the last two years and has looked more like just-a-guy. So the biggest win here is … Jaelan Phillips, who has missed chunks of two out of four seasons to injury? DeVante Parker, who had one season of at least 800 yards in seven years in Miami? Christian Wilkins, who left as soon as he could?

20. Indianapolis Colts

Average pick: 15.4 (No. 17)
Percentage of games: 56.7% (No. 17)

Colts’ ability to draft offensive linemen: Good! Ryan Kelly made four Pro Bowls in nine years in Indianapolis and was good-to-very-good throughout his tenure, while Quenton Nelson has been one of the game’s best guards for all seven of his seasons.

Colts’ ability to draft anything else: Real spotty. Phillip Dorsett II was a questionable pick from the jump. The jury isn’t totally back on Anthony Richardson, but it’s certainly leaning toward a guilty verdict (does that metaphor work?). The wins with Kelly and Nelson don’t do nearly enough to offset the failures.

19. Denver Broncos

Average pick: 16.3 (No. 12)
Percentage of games: 49.0% (No. 23)

If this were just 2015 to 2020, the Broncos would rank near the bottom. But they’ve made two first-round picks in the last four years (they didn’t have a first-rounder in 2022 or 2023) and got the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year (Pat Surtain II) and a guy who would have been Offensive Rookie of the Year in many years (Bo Nix) with those picks. That is a great haul. But before that, Shane Ray and Paxton Lynch never even reached a second contract, while Noah Fant and Jerry Jeudy got their second contracts elsewhere. Garett Bolles and Bradley Chubb were successful picks, but the failures drag the rest down.

18. Buffalo Bills

Average pick: 19.5 (No. 10)
Percentage of games: 69.8% (No. 1)

Josh Allen is extremely good! He’s probably the second-best player in football! He and Tre’Davious White really shined as first-rounders (at least until injuries wrecked White’s career, but he was great before that). But beyond those two, the Bills have gotten limited production. Shaq Lawson left Buffalo and came back, but during his first tenure he was only good-not-great. Same for Ed Oliver and the now-in-Chicago Tremaine Edmunds But since 2019, the team has drafted Greg Rousseau (fine if unspectacular), Kaiir Elam (big-time bust) and Dalton Kincaid (jury still out), with no first-rounders in 2020 or 2024.

(On the plus side: The Bills have gotten the most playing time from their first-rounders than any other team, so at least they haven’t wasted time.)

17. Carolina Panthers

Average pick: 15.7 (No. 14)
Percentage of games: 65.4% (No. 4)

“We passed on C.J. Stroud and traded away the pick that became Caleb Williams, plus more, to take Bryce Young” looked like an all-time bag-fumble a year ago, but after Stroud and Williams (relatively) struggled in 2024 and Young seemed better when he returned to the starting job, it now looks … well, still bad, but not “oh my god”-bad. That said, trades don’t factor into the analysis here, so it’s just a look at the picks, and by that measure, Young is just ho-hum, not disastrous. The Panthers did draft good players in five straight years Christian McCaffrey, DJ Moore, Brian Burns, Derrick Brown and Jaycee Horn in 2017 to 2021, but they dealt away the first three during (or before) their prime, so they don’t get as much credit as they could have.