The NFL Draft is a make-or-break weekend for most NFL teams. An amazing draft can set you up for years to come, but one mistake can set your rebuild back multiple years. Because of what a good draft can do to a team, NFL Draft season is one of the most exciting times of the year for all fans.

There have been plenty of draft picks that end up panning out and becoming elite players, but for every superstar, there’s always a bust. Today, we’re going to go back and identify the 10 biggest NFL Draft busts since 2015.

1. Trey Lance – 3rd pick in 2021

The biggest NFL Draft bust since 2015 has to be Trey Lance. He’s not necessarily the worst player on this list, but the San Francisco 49ers shipped three first-round picks away for his talents, and he hardly even touched the field in Santa Clara.

Lance, the 3rd overall pick in 2021, appeared in six games in his rookie season, starting two, where he completed 57.7 percent of his passes for 603 yards, five touchdowns, and two interceptions while rushing for 168 yards and a score. There were some things to clean up, but overall, it wasn’t a horrible start for the rookie. In 2022, he was named the 49ers’ starter heading into the year. He started the first two games of the season, completing under 50 percent of his throws for 226 yards, zero touchdowns, and an interception. His season ended prematurely after a season-ending ankle injury, which allowed the 49ers to find their franchise quarterback in Brock Purdy.

Lance wouldn’t take another snap in San Francisco and would eventually join the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Chargers, where he’d serve as the backup for Dak Prescott and Justin Herbert. He’s certainly not the worst player on this list, but when you consider the compensation that was given up for him, it’s hard to say he’s not the biggest bust of the last decade.

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2. Josh Rosen – 10th pick in 2018

Josh Rosen was viewed as the next big thing coming out of UCLA. He was a great college quarterback, and it appeared he had all the intangibles to be an NFL quarterback. But boy, were we all wrong.

Rosen was selected 10th overall by the Arizona Cardinals in 2018. He played one season for them that year, where he appeared in 14 games and completed 55.2 percent of his throws for 2,278 yards, 11 touchdowns, and 14 picks while taking 45 sacks. He would bounce around to Miami, Atlanta, and a few other places before he was out of the league by 2023.

I don’t think the Cardinals really did anything wrong here. Rosen was viewed as one of the best quarterbacks in his draft class, and after his final year at UCLA, I don’t think many people thought taking him at 10 was a mistake; he just didn’t pan out.

3. Zach Wilson – 2nd pick in 2021

It’s kind of funny how two of the biggest busts of the last decade were drafted one pick apart. Zach Wilson was selected one pick ahead of Lance and comes in just a couple of spots behind him.

Wilson played on and off for the New York Jets for three seasons, but he never did anything special, completing just over 57 percent of his passes for 6,293 yards, 23 touchdowns, and 25 interceptions in 33 games. Since his time in the Big Apple came to a close in 2023, Wilson has with the Broncos and Dolphins in 2024 and 202,5 respectively. After replacing Tua Tagovailoa briefly this year, he was beaten out by rookie Quinn Ewers for the starting job.

Wilson’s entire career is built around one throw he made at the NFL Combine. May he be a lesson to teams around the league: throwing in compression shorts and no pads does NOT make you a great NFL quarterback. Watch the tape.

4. Kevin White – 7th pick in 2015

It’s hard to believe Kevin White was drafted more than 10 years ago now. I remember it like it was yesterday. The West Virginia standout was viewed as one of the best wide receiver prospects in the last few years, but man, we couldn’t have been more wrong.

White was selected 7th overall by the Chicago Bears in 2015, and immediately, it was a complete disaster. In his rookie season, White caught just 19 passes for 187 yards and didn’t score a single touchdown. And that would be his most productive season in the NFL. He’d catch just six passes over the next two years with Chicago, and it would take three more seasons before he caught another pass in the NFL. He was on the Saints for a couple of years, but had just three catches during that span.

White finished his NFL career with 28 catches for 397 yards, and he never found the end zone one time. Arguably the biggest receiver bust of all time.

5. Jeff Okudah – 3rd pick in 2020

Jeff Okudah is the highest-draft cornerback in NFL history. The Ohio State standout was supposed to be the next great cornerback in the NFL, and the Detroit Lions used the third pick in the 2020 draft to hopefully select their cornerback of the future, but that did not go as planned.

In year one, Okudah was picked on. He was targeted 50 times, allowing 38 catches (76 percent) for 579 yards while picking off one pass. After a rough rookie season, there was still some optimism that he could bounce back, but he tore his Achilles tendon in the first game of the season and missed the rest of the year. After that, he gave up 600+ yards in 2022 before going to Atlanta in 2023. There, he faced the same struggles, and since that 2023 season, he’s bounced around to Houston and Minnesota, where he’s never played more than 100 snaps in a season.

Okudah is still in the league, but he has struggled greatly during his career. He’s probably a better player than some of the guys behind him, but considering he was the highest drafted corner ever, he has to be in the top five.

6. Justin Fields – 11th pick in 2021

Another 2021 quarterback makes his way onto this list. Statistically, Justin Fields wasn’t the worst quarterback for Chicago. He threw for 6,674 yards and 40 touchdowns to 30 interceptions while rushing for 14 more scores and over 2,200 yards, but he was never able to elevate the offense as they needed him to, and his tenure in Chicago ended after three seasons of seven or fewer wins.

Fields has bounced around between Pittsburgh and New York since leaving Chicago, and he’s actually gotten worse. He was okay for Pittsburgh, but wasn’t great, and in New York this year, he was incapable of throwing a forward pass. He came out of college with so much hype, but he has never lived up to it. I couldn’t put him any higher, though, because he’s been a starter for the past five years, even if he didn’t deserve to be.

7. Anthony Richardson – 4th pick in 2023

Anthony Richardson has not been great in his brief NFL career. In fact, I think you could say he’s been worse than almost everyone above him on this list. However, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him. Maybe in Indy, but he’s going to get another opportunity elsewhere, and until he fails there, I can’t have him as high as some of the others on this list.

In three seasons with Indianapolis, the former fourth overall pick has thrown for 2,400 yards, 11 touchdowns and 13 interceptions while completing 50.2 percent of his throws. He’s also added 634 yards and 10 scores with his feet, but even with those numbers added, his career stats are less than impressive.

Richardson seemed like the most obvious bust ever coming out of college. Unless you were a Florida fan, you saw all the issues he had. I mean, the guy threw for 2,549 yards, 17 touchdowns, and nine picks while completing 54 percent of his throws in college. Was he ever going to be a great NFL quarterback?

Richardson is another case of picking traits over production. It’s rarely worked, so I don’t understand why teams keep doing it. Maybe he can have a resurgence elsewhere, but I think it’s safe to label him as a bust. And if he never ends up panning out, he could be top-three on this list in a couple of years.

8. John Ross – 9th pick in 2017

John Ross was a really good football player in college, but he was not going to sniff being a top-10 pick until he broke the NFL Combine record for the fastest 40-yard dash. As soon as he did that, he began flying up draft boards, and the Cincinnati Bengals took him ninth overall in 2017.

It was quickly apparent that they had made a mistake. In Ross’s rookie year, he appeared in just three games and didn’t catch a single pass. He dealt with a ton of injuries, but even when he was pretty healthy in 2018, he caught just 21 passes for 210 yards, but did score seven touchdowns. He recorded a career-high 506 yards in 2019, but it’s been all downhill since then.

In his eight-year NFL career, Ross caught 63 passes for 963 yards and 11 touchdowns. If it weren’t for his 7-touchdown season in 2018 and his 500-yard season in 2019, he’d likely be a top-five biggest bust of the last decade. However, this was still a massive miss by the Bengals.

9. Kenny Pickett – 20th pick in 2022

Kenny Pickett was the only quarterback taken in the first round in 2022. It was a horrible draft class for quarterbacks, but the Pittsburgh Steelers thought they would pull a fast one on the rest of the league by getting the QB1 at pick 20, but they made a big mistake.

Pickett’s time in Pittsburgh was a disaster. In two seasons, Pickett threw for 4,474 yards, 13 touchdowns, and 13 interceptions while rushing for 291 yards and four scores. He appeared in 25 games during that span, but after the 2024 season, he was shipped off to Philadelphia, where he’d appear in five games, but never start. In 2025, Pickett was traded to the Raiders, where he started one game and threw for a whopping 64 yards in a 31-0 loss to the Eagles.

If Pickett were selected in the top-10, he’d have an argument for being a top-three bust since 2015, but since he was selected in the back half of the first round, he comes in at No. 8.

10. Jalen Reagor – 21st pick in 2020

Jalen Reagor probably wouldn’t be considered a top-10 bust of the last decade if it weren’t for the fact that Justin Jefferson was selected one pick later. Even if he wasn’t, Reagor would be a huge bust, but maybe not big enough to be No. 10 on this list.

Reagor played two seasons in Philadelphia before the Eagles had enough of him. In two seasons, Reagor caught 64 passes for 695 yards and three touchdowns, but his production was overshadowed by drop issues. Philly shipped him off to Minnesota in 2022, and since then, Reagor has caught just 22 passes for three different teams.

Again, Reagor wouldn’t be talked about as much as he has been if it weren’t for Jefferson, arguably the best receiver in the league, going one pick later. Howie Roseman doesn’t get many things wrong, but this was certainly one of them.