Booms and Busts - A Look at the No. 1 Picks Over the Past 20 Years

Tim Couch Draft Day

The NFL Draft has earned a reputation for being little more than a crapshoot. Considering the number of hours NFL scouts spend poring over game tapes, watching athletes run sprints, and quizzing them to find a “Wonderlic” score, it’s a bit odd that there are no “sure things.”

Even players drafted first overall in the draft and guaranteed $30-40 million can go “bust” in an instant. Or they could live up to their expectations and go “boom,” retiring on their own terms after a solid career. That’s the excitement of the NFL Draft and why fans actually care enough to tune in for hours at a time to see who their team thought was the best available college player.