Mickey Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I started this as a reply in another thread but on the worst players at every position but we have had so many bad WR's that the discussion deserves its own thread. With stats, here is the pool of the worst of the worst. I have concentrated on guys who were drafted pretty high or who at least raised some expectations at one point or another for some reason. Perry Tuttle, first round pick 1982: 1982: 7-107, 0 TD's 1983: 17-261, 3 TD's 1984: traded to Atlanta where he had 1 catch 1985: no catches in three games, career ends. Byron Franklin, WR 2nd Rd. 1981: 1981: 2-29, 0 TD 1982: Did not play 1983: 20-452, 4 TD's 1984: 69-862, 4TD's 1985: 10-119, 0 TD (with Seattle) 1986: 33-547, 2 TD " 1987: 1-7, 0 TD career ends. Mike Mosely, WR 3rd Rd. 1981 (picked after Byron Franklin): 1981: did not play 1982: 9-96, 0 TD's 1983: 14-180, 3 TD's 1984: 4-38, 0 TD's Eric Richardson, WR 2nd Rd. 1984: 1984 did not play? 1985: 12-201, 0 TD 1986: 3-49, 0 TD John Kolesar, WR 4th Rd. 1989 (same year Bebee taken in 3rd): Never made an active roster. Russell Copeland, 4th round pick, 1993: 1993: 13-242, 0 TD 1994: 21-255, 1 TD 1995: 42-646, 1 TD 1996: 7-85, 0 TD 1997: played for GB and Philly, 20-242, career ends. Bucky Brooks, 2nd Rd. 1994: Returned kicks until until put injured and put on IR, missed next season as well and then was put on defense by GB where he never started, not sure if we drafted him to play WR or to play defense. Trivia note: we had two 2nd round picks that year and followed up this great pick by taking TE Lonnie Johnson, without doubt the worst TE ever in a Bills uniform. Justin Armour, WR 4th Rd. 1995: 1995: 26-300, 3TD's 1996: IR 1997: traded to Philly, did not play 1998: traded to Denver 1-23 1999: traded to Baltimore, 37-538, 4TD's Bernard Ford, 3rd round, 1988: Was hurt rookie year and then cut/traded, played one year with Dallas and one with Houston before career ended with a grand total of 17 catches. Not one regular season catch in a Bills uniform. John Kimbrough, WR, 3rd rd 1977 1977: 10-207, 0 TD career ends John Pitts, WR first Rd., 1967---never made a catch...on offense, was made into a safety where he had a good 5 years before being traded to Denver where he became part of the orange crush defense. The worst stretch ever had to be the early '80's where in the space of 3 years we took 4 WR's in the top 3 rounds and they were all total busts including the likes of Tuttle, Mosely, Franklin and Richardson. Ever wonder why Jim Kelly didn't want to play for Buffalo? His targets would have been Franklin, Mosely and Tuttle. Yikes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beerball Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I think you have to give Tuttle a pass. The guy did get killed in the Korean conflict after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merlin Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I think you have to give Tuttle a pass. The guy did get killed in the Korean conflict after all. 724341[/snapback] Hmmm ... as Mark Twain once said, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated"! http://www.erskine.edu/news/04.28.05/cs.04.28.05.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eball Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I think you have to give Tuttle a pass. 724341[/snapback] They tried. He dropped it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rico Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I liked Mosely a lot... thought he looked pretty good when he was healthy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buftex Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Not sure why Byron Franklin is on the list...not spectacular, but he had at least one decent year in six...it seems there have been far worse...he played on not only some of the worst Bills teams of all time, but also some of the worst all-time in the NFL... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GG Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 The funny part is that they weren't seen as great busts because it was half expected that Bills would draft duds in that era. Why shouldn't we have bad receivers? After all we drafted Gene Bradley to throw the ball to them. Can you imagine having a worse draft than 1981 Buffalo Bills? Mike Moseley, a crappy QB, why don't you come here to washout as a WR? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Posted July 17, 2006 Author Share Posted July 17, 2006 Not sure why Byron Franklin is on the list...not spectacular, but he had at least one decent year in six...it seems there have been far worse...he played on not only some of the worst Bills teams of all time, but also some of the worst all-time in the NFL... 724388[/snapback] Fair enough but another way to look at it is that in terms of what was expected of him, he was a flop. A second round pick and only 22 catches in his first 3 years with us. Bills were 10-6 in his rookie year and 8-8 in 1983 so they were not bad for his whole term here. He had one year where he was not an embarassment and that is about all you can say about him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawerchuk10 Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 It is a slow sports off-season around here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Posted July 17, 2006 Author Share Posted July 17, 2006 The funny part is that they weren't seen as great busts because it was half expected that Bills would draft duds in that era. Why shouldn't we have bad receivers? After all we drafted Gene Bradley to throw the ball to them. Can you imagine having a worse draft than 1981 Buffalo Bills? Mike Moseley, a crappy QB, why don't you come here to washout as a WR? 724393[/snapback] Yeah, 1981 and 1982 were awful drafts, nightmares in fact. Witness the ugliness: (Pick, Rd., # in Rd. and #overall) 1982 1 1 19 19 Perry Tuttle WR Clemson 2 2 21 48 Matt Kofler QB San Diego State 3 3 4 59 Eugene Marve LB Saginaw Valley State 4 4 10 93 Van Williams RB Carson-Newman 5 6 21 160 DeWayne Chivers TE South Carolina 6 7 4 171 Gary Anderson K Syracuse 7 8 23 218 Luc Tousignant QB Fairmont State 8 9 22 245 Dennis Edwards DT USC 9 10 21 272 Vic James DB Colorado 10 11 19 298 Frank Kalil G Arizona 11 12 23 329 Tony Suber DT Gardner-Webb 1981 1 1 28 28 Booker Moore RB Penn State 2 2 21 49 Chris Williams DB Louisiana State 3 2 22 50 Byron Franklin WR Auburn 4 3 20 76 Mike Mosley WR Texas A&M 5 3 27 83 Robert Geathers DT South Carolina State 6 5 24 135 Calvin Clark DE Purdue 7 6 23 161 Robert Holt WR Baylor 8 7 22 188 Steve Doolittle LB Colorado 9 9 20 241 Rob Riddick RB Millersville (PA) 10 10 24 272 Justin Cross T Western Colorado 11 11 23 299 Buster Barnett TE Jackson State 12 12 22 326 Keith Clark LB Memphis State Marve was okay and so was Rob Riddick. We cut Anderson. The rest are bums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duey Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I think you have to give Tuttle a pass. The guy did get killed in the Korean conflict after all. 724341[/snapback] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buftex Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 I think you have to give Tuttle a pass. The guy did get killed in the Korean conflict after all. 724341[/snapback] I keep waiting for someone to not get that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gobillsinytown Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 Actually I remember Copeland as looking really promising in '95, but then just disappeared. Some of the football magazines were picking him as the next low round draft gem. For a while there it looked like it was going to come true but I guess he wasn't able to make the yearly adjustments required of WR's to stay ahead of the DB's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelly the Dog Posted July 17, 2006 Share Posted July 17, 2006 The funny part is that they weren't seen as great busts because it was half expected that Bills would draft duds in that era. Why shouldn't we have bad receivers? After all we drafted Gene Bradley to throw the ball to them. Can you imagine having a worse draft than 1981 Buffalo Bills? Mike Moseley, a crappy QB, why don't you come here to washout as a WR? 724393[/snapback] I recall Mosley looking like an awesome KR before he hurt his knee. But yes, our QBs in that era were more dreadful than the guys dropping the ball. They were probably just shocked that it got to them in the air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astrobot Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 You have to go Bucky Brooks or Ford as the biggest waste of a draft spot. I'd expect more of a 2nd Rounder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crap Throwing Monkey Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Considering their draft spots (and Armour's injury), were Copeland and Armour really that bad? Copeland, at least, outperformed the much higher drafted players you listed as busts. Armour had a good rookie year before his injury (which, as I recall, was just something he could never recover from). Can you really hold Armour's injury against him? And was Copeland's performance really all that out of line for a 4th rounder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExWNYer Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 You have to go Bucky Brooks or Ford as the biggest waste of a draft spot. I'd expect more of a 2nd Rounder. 724469[/snapback] Oh, you were sooooooooo close. Perry Tuttle "wins" this title but thanks for playing and be sure to pick up your consolation prize on the way out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob in STL Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 Fair enough but another way to look at it is that in terms of what was expected of him, he was a flop. A second round pick and only 22 catches in his first 3 years with us. Bills were 10-6 in his rookie year and 8-8 in 1983 so they were not bad for his whole term here. He had one year where he was not an embarassment and that is about all you can say about him. 724395[/snapback] Byron Franklin was not a bad player at all. He took time to develop and sat on the bench behind some good WRs in Jerry Butler and Company. He had some good years, some injuries, and then he played for another team (Atlanta I think). No way was he in the category of a Bucky Brooks or some of the others on your list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Posted July 18, 2006 Author Share Posted July 18, 2006 Considering their draft spots (and Armour's injury), were Copeland and Armour really that bad? Copeland, at least, outperformed the much higher drafted players you listed as busts. Armour had a good rookie year before his injury (which, as I recall, was just something he could never recover from). Can you really hold Armour's injury against him? And was Copeland's performance really all that out of line for a 4th rounder? 724471[/snapback] I agree, I included them because they were tapped in that other thread by some as making the all crap roster for the Bills. These are not who I think are busts, they are the candidate list. I looked into this because I saw names like these guys more than I did Tuttle. Tuttle was the Mike Williams of his era. To be fair, I can see why some remembered Copeland and Armour as being pretty bad. Neither of those guys were high picks but because they showed such promise early, expectations were raised, and dashed. With Armour, it was especially disappointing because he would make great catches, 2 or 3 at least, and then off to IR for another year. "Bust" doesn't fit him as well as "Excruciatingly disappointing". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave mcbride Posted July 18, 2006 Share Posted July 18, 2006 not sure why you're going after bucky brooks. he had a devastating knee injury, and never was able to show his stuff. for the same reason that ki-jana carter wasn't a bust (he would have been great if not for the freak injury), brooks was not one either. it wasn't like he was a bad player before the injury. indeed, kelly waxed poetic during brooks' rookie season about how the guy was gonna be a star. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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