As comes with any professional sports draft, the futility of moving around throughout the NFL Draft can really dictate the future of a franchise for many years to come. When a team decides to move up for a specific player, the return on investment must be much higher than a normal player, due to the added value of the draft selections that were given up by the team moving up in the draft.
Situations like when the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans decided to move up in the 2017 NFL Draft and select their quarterbacks of the future, Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson, respectively, worked out excellently for the teams that moved up, while the two teams that moved down in the draft but received a boatload of picks to do it, the Buffalo Bills with the Chiefs and the Cleveland Browns with the Texans, provided mixed results on the added draft capital that they added through the deal.
But this article does not look at the deals that worked out very well or that even worked out evenly well for both teams – this piece will look specifically at how poorly some deals turned out to be for some teams, crippling their chances of competing for the next few seasons and forcing the team to commit full-on resets just after they tried to jumpstart their rebuild.
Here are five deals that went terribly wrong for some teams, making them fall much farther back than moving forward as they had desired to.
Mike Mamula – 1995
Teams involved: Philadelphia Eagles & Tampa Bay Buccaneers
In the same draft that saw the Cincinnati Bengals make a very uncharacteristic move, jumping up to first overall (from 5th) to draft RB Ki-Jana Carter who ended up flaming out after three injury-riddled seasons, the Philadelphia Eagles decided to take the cake that year with the draft’s worst move.
Much to the delight of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Eagles were overly smitten with DE Mike Mamula of Boston College, who had wowed the league with a superb scouting combine. His peaking value drove the Eagles to make a crazy move that made them regret it for the next five seasons.
Moving up to 7th from 12th, the Eagles shipped their first, plus two seconds, to the Bucs to move up five spots and take Mamula. While his 31.5 career sacks were not all that bad, the Bucs won this deal when they selected Warren Sapp at 12 and then shipped one of their second-rounders out to move up and select LB Derrick Brooks.
Both players have ended up in the Hall of Fame, while the Eagles were forced to deal with five sub-par seasons of Mamula while looking back at what they could have had.
Herschel Walker – 1989
Teams Involved: Minnesota Vikings & Dallas Cowboys
One piece away – that is all the Minnesota Vikings felt they were away from being a perennial championship contender. And they felt that RB Herschel Walker was that missing link.
The Dallas Cowboys, who had just experienced a 2,000+ all-purpose yard season from Walker, and head coach Jimmy Johnson felt that their best route to upgrading their roster was to add more picks to their allotment and upgrade through the draft. The Vikings helped that cause, and then some, when they acquired Walker for four players and four picks.
LB Jesse Solomon, LB David Howard, CB Issaic Holt, DE Alex Stewart, as well as MIN’s 1st, 2nd, and 6th in 1990, as well as a 2nd in 1992.
But what pushed this deal over the edge were the conditions put on the players that the Cowboys acquired, which could have given Dallas a first and second in 1991 and a first and third in ‘92 if these players were cut by a certain deadline. While those conditions were remedied and the Cowboys kept these players because the framework was changed, it still paved the way for a few Dallas legends to join the team.
With the picks that were acquired, the Cowboys moved around and eventually acquired RB Emmitt Smith, S Darren Woodson, and DT Russell Maryland, and they helped the Cowboys win three Super Bowls in four seasons, while the Vikings made the playoffs once with Walker and he left soon after.
Mitchell Trubisky – 2017
Teams Involved: Chicago Bears & San Francisco 49ers
In an NFL Draft that was filled with QB prospects, the Chicago Bears were highest up in the draft at third overall, and able to pick from the cream of the crop. But in typical Bears fashion, they messed up their franchise-altering move, and in a big way.
Worried that the San Francisco 49ers may choose a QB ahead of them, they moved up one spot into 2nd overall, giving up no. 3, 67, and 111, as well as a 2018 3rd-rounder, and selected UNC QB Mitchell Trubisky, who only had one full season of starting college football.
In the same draft that they could have had either Mahomes or Watson, they went all-in on an unproven commodity, and GM Ryan Pace has had to deal with those ramifications ever since. The 49ers took DE Solomon Thomas at 3, and they ended up winning this deal with the plethora of picks they acquired for moving down one spot.
Ryan Leaf – 1998
Teams Involved: San Diego Chargers & Arizona Cardinals
Looked back as one of the worst draft moves in NFL history, the San Diego Chargers moved up one spot to select QB Ryan Leaf, who turned out to be a horrendous flop in the league. As for the Arizona Cardinals, even though they failed at maximizing their return, they were still able to coax two firsts, one second, and two players just to move down one spot.
The second overall pick changed hands and went to the Chargers, who in turn flipped no. 3 and 33 in ‘98, plus no. 8 in 1999 to AZ.
Leaf’s three-year NFL career, with a year lost to injury sandwiched in there in ‘99, was awful, winning four total games in his career across 21 starts. He was on SD’s roster for ‘98-’00 and was on the Cowboys for ‘01, but that was the last of his professional career.
Legal trouble has followed him after his pro career ended, earning jail time for breaking into a Montana home to steal prescription drugs in an attempt to try and feed his drug addiction.
Ricky Williams – 1999
Teams Involved: New Orleans Saints & Washington Redskins
Mortgaging a team’s entire future just for one player is a hard pill to swallow, but for Mike Ditka and his New Orleans Saints, they felt that moving up to get Ricky Williams was the right move.
The Washington Redskins ended up being the recipients of the Saints’ entire 1999 draft class, plus a first- and third-rounder in 2000, to hand over the no. 5 pick in return to move down to no. 12.
An even bigger haul was offered to the Bengals to move up higher that would have included more high picks, but the Saints settled on moving up to five, which was high enough to get Williams. While the Saints did win the franchise’s first-ever playoff game in ‘00, their loss on the picks that they sent out was pretty high, mostly because they could have used them to build up their team in better ways.
They recouped some when they sent Williams to MIA for two first-rounders in 2002, but with the team finishing a lousy 3-13 in ‘99, Ditka was fired and the Saints were forced to dig themselves out of this hole for a long time.
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