Bleacher Report Made a Draft Bust List and Somehow Forgot Two of the Most Painful Picks in Lions History
Bleacher Report recently put together a ranking of the 99 biggest draft busts of all time across every sport. They used some kind of system. They crunched numbers. And when the dust settled, four Detroit Lions made the cut.
Four. Not six. Not eight. Four.
Which means somebody over there either forgot about Andre Ware or decided a Heisman Trophy winner taken seventh overall who started six games in four seasons somehow doesn’t qualify as an all-time disaster. Let’s talk about what made the list and what absolutely should have.
The Lions Who Made the Cut
Jeff Okudah came in at number 99. Mike Williams at 85. Joey Harrington at 51. Charles Rogers at 21.
Those last three are Matt Millen specials, and yes, they belong on any list like this. Rogers was a generational talent who could not stay healthy or sober. Harrington was supposed to save the franchise and instead became a symbol of everything broken about it. Williams was a reach on draft day and never stopped being a reach.
Okudah is the one that feels a little harsh. Has he lived up to being the third overall pick? Hell no. But he did turn into an NFL starter. That actually happened. He’s had a career. Not the career anyone wanted, but a career nonetheless. Putting him on a list with some of the biggest flameouts in sports history feels like piling on.
The Two Glaring Omissions
Andre Ware won the Heisman Trophy. The Lions took him seventh overall. He was supposed to be the franchise quarterback. Instead, he started six games across four seasons and disappeared.
Six games. Four years. Seventh overall.
If that doesn’t qualify as an all-time bust, then the criteria for this list are fundamentally broken. Ware wasn’t just a miss, he was a miss that defined an era of dysfunction long before Matt Millen arrived.
The other one is Titus Young. Yes, he was only a second round pick, but after his rookie season the hype was sky high. This was supposed to be Calvin Johnson’s running mate. The future of the receiving corps.
Then he decided to line up incorrectly on purpose during a game because he was mad he wasn’t getting targets. On purpose. In a real NFL game. He dealt with personal issues that derailed everything, and his career ended almost as fast as it started. The gap between expectation and reality was enormous, and the way it fell apart was uniquely painful even by Lions standards.
The Millen Era Still Defines This Conversation
Three of the four Lions who made the list were Matt Millen picks. That tells you everything you need to know about those years. Those weren’t just bad drafts, they were franchise-altering catastrophes that set this team back for over a decade.
Rogers, Harrington, Williams. Those names still hurt. They still show up in every conversation about draft mistakes and organizational incompetence. They are the reason older Lions fans flinch when someone says we should trade up for a receiver or reach for a quarterback in the first round.
The scars from the Millen years don’t just fade. They’re part of the DNA now.
And when a list like this comes out and somehow forgets Andre Ware, it’s just another reminder that even the national media doesn’t fully grasp how deep the pain runs in Detroit.
So Bleacher Report left off Andre Ware and Titus Young. Are those two bigger busts than Jeff Okudah or are we just overrating our own misery? Drop your take below.
