re: Is Vaughn Dunbar the worst draft pick in the history of Saints?

What ever happened to that Chip Vaughn guy?

Isn't it a little sad that we've had drafts so bad that the Ricky Williams Fiasco is not #1 on this list?

I understand Ricky wasn't a terrible player by any means, and we got a decent return for him out of MIA. But trading your entire draft for one player, then turn around two years later and draft Deuce (who would end up being a far more productive player for you) is insane.

Hell, the skins used our pick in '00 on Lavar Arrington. Urlacher was selected top ten there too. So was Plaxico Burress and Jamal Lewis. Any of those guys could've helped that team a hell of a lot more than Ricky.

Just because Mike Ditka and Bill Kuherich were stupid, that doesn't make Ricky Williams a bust.

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Just because Mike Ditka and Bill Kuherich were stupid, that doesn't make Ricky Williams a bust.

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Giving up an entire draft and another 1 & 3 is absurd, but Williams had a career with 10,000 yards rushing and he became the 29th all time rusher in NFL history. And he did that never giving a shite about football and missing almost three entire seasons. The guy turned out to be legit.

Now if the Saints did that and then drafted Curtis Enis.....

Any choice outside of Erxleben is incorrect.

Sure, you can argue about players being busts if you like (and for the record, Alex Molden did start awhile, and actually ran down Deion Sanders on a kick return once). That's not the point; busts happen, and to all teams.

Taking a kicker/punter in the top half of the first round is the worst draft decision you can make. Even if he turns out to be an All Pro (and he wasn't), you can find a kicker with almost the same qualifications as an UDFA.

Sullivan, Dunbar, Knight etc: those guys at least played at positions that could justify the 1st rd pick. Had they panned out, nobody would have blinked an eye.
Had Erxleben panned out, it still would have been considered an extremely stupid use of a pick.

Rickey Williams pick would be 1a on this, simply because nobody is worth an entire draft. Maybe in 3 years, you could argue that nobody else would still be on the roster, but if you doubt your scouting that much, maybe you should turn in your resignation before the draft.

Thread title was not biggest bust in Saints history, it's the worst draft pick in Saints history.

From a "state of the franchise" point of view, I'd argue that very few picks have done more damage to the franchise than Ricky.

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I guess my definition of "bust" is different than your's. To me, a bust Is a player who can't start, never makes any significant contribution, and is cut or traded in a year or two - like Shawn Knight or Jonathon Sullivan (I think Sullivan may have lasted three years).

Players like Russell Erzleban and Ricky Williams contributed and stuck around for a while, even if the front office paid WAY too high a price to draft them. That's a Player Personnel Dep't bust/brain fart.

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Thread title was not biggest bust in Saints history, it's the worst draft pick in Saints history.

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This is the issue. You can list a guy like Shawn Knight, who indeed never contributed a down for the Saints. That's a fantastic example of a bust.

But he was a 295 pound DE who supposedly had good speed. If he panned out to what they hoped for, then a dominant defensive end is worth a 1st round pick.

Russell Erxleben was a place kicker/punter.
Choosing that position in the first round means the guy MAKING the pick is a bust, regardless of the player.

One is an educated guess that you got wrong; the other is an idiotic decision.

I don't think we are arguing the definition of "bust", we're debating whether picking a bust is worse than having an idiot making picks.

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Probably 1970 16th round pick Muhammad Fotchelaminga a 4'11", 680 lb. WR from Trollsberg State....

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Revisiting this thread, because, well, I'm getting tired of a lot of the other current topics on this forum (and by that, I'm not meaning ST, I mean "current events" )

To the original post-

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Is Vaughn Dunbar the worst draft pick in the history of Saints?

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answer is clearly, hell no.

Dunbar, if I remember right, was a 1st team All American tailback, I almost think he led the nation in rushing yards or something. This was during an era when taking RBs in the first round was still the norm; it's not like now, when the RB position is not seen as a priority.

Teams ran first, and passed off the run. I doubt that a team like the Houston Oilers with Earl Campbell threw more than 1 out of 10 times on 1st down, or 2nd and 8 or less, or 3rd and 3 or less.
A QB was a nice bonus, but outside of the Chargers with Fouts, Dolphins with Marino, or 49ers with Montana, teams still lined up and ran, unless yardage dictated that they HAD to throw.
Running backs generally came in and produced right away, while quarterbacks (even good ones) took awhile to develop. Marino was really the outlier, he's about the only guy I remember making a huge difference as a rookie.

Dunbar was a bust, but conventional wisdom supported the pick.