Former Vikings QB makes Pat McAfee's list of biggest draft busts in NFL history
With the NFL Draft coming up on Thursday the Minnesota Vikings are rumored to be in the market for a quarterback. As Pat McAfee points out, finding a franchise quarterback in the draft is easier said than done.
On Thursday's episode of The Pat McAfee Show, McAfee ran down his 10 biggest quarterback draft busts in NFL history with a disclaimer that most players that will be selected in this year's draft may not live up to their expectations.
"What we need to remember, while these players are getting drafted and dreams are coming true...the NFL is hard," McAfee said. "The NFL is not easy. Some of these dudes look like absolute superstars, freaks, men that we have never seen before. Some people are being described as they have yet to step on to an NFL football field. Everyone calls people a bust that doesn't do well, but I think that's a little rude."
McAfee went on to go through examples such as JaMarcus Russell, Joey Harrington and David Carr, but Vikings fans already know where this is going as Christian Ponder made the list.
"The next quarterbacks taken after he was drafted No. 12 were Andy Dalton and Colin Kaepernick," McAfee pointed out. "Of course, those two would have a lot more success obviously than Ponder and people would say Ponder is a bust. I say it's a little bit negative. I think Ponder is a great football player but the NFL is hard."
To McAfee's point, Ponder was a standout at Florida State despite battling several injuries. Ponder led the ACC in passing yards per game when he went down with a shoulder injury in 2009 and threw for 2,044 yards, 20 touchdowns and eight interceptions during his senior season in 2010.
Things didn't pan out in the NFL after Ponder was selected with the 12th overall pick in the draft. He spent four years with Minnesota with two as the primary starter and even led Minnesota to the playoffs in 2012, but his overall record of 14-21-1 and a 38-to-36 touchdown to interception ratio ultimately forced him out of the league after he was released by the Vikings in 2014.
Ponder's tenure has cemented him as one of the most vilified names in Vikings history but as McAfee warns, that might not be fair because Ponder's experience is shared by many an NFL quarterback.
"Franchises are potentially changing but what is most likely is that person is going to suck and they're going to be let down and the town is going to hate them," McAfee said. "They're going to call them a waste of laundry detergent and they're never going to amount to anything. They'll have to go through conversations about that for the rest of their lives even though they were better than anybody. They played college football with their friends, who had highlights in college football and never made it to the NFL and just get f***ing cooked and have to be regarded as a bust this entire time. But once again, it's not their fault...the NFL is hard and it doesn't get talked about enough."
