Ravens Top 10 Worst Draft Picks Of the Last 10 Years: #1 Kyle Boller
Oct 23, 2011; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Raiders quarterback Kyle Boller (7) sits on the ground after throwing his second interception of the game Kansas City Chiefs in the first quarter at O.co Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
With The Draft upcoming, i thought it would be appropriot to take a look at some of the shining accomplishment and most glaring faults in terms of draft picks.
First I will be starting with The Ravens 10 worst draft picks. I have a few parameters here.
- No picks outside of round 3 were considered. It isnt really fair to call a seventh rounder a bad pick because he never played.
- No Current Starters, a starter cant really be considered a bad pick unless they were a high pick who hasn’t paned out(spoiler alert, the Ravens don’t have any of those).
Those arent shackling restraints, but because the Ravens draft so well in the first three rounds, this was actually a bit of a challenge. This list is riddled with career ending injuries(or series of injuries) and crazy improbable events that changed the career of the player involved.
We have reached the top of the list Ravens fans, was there ever any doubt about who would be waiting for us here? Kyle Boller isn’t just the Ravens worst pick of the past decade, he is their worst pick ever. It isnt even close.
As you probably know, the Ravens drafted Boller in the first round of the 2003 NFL draft. They took him 19th overall. The reason Kyle Boller transends his bad on field performance, is the fact that the Ravens traded away their 2004 first round pick to get him. That pick turned into Vince Wilfork. Oops. The Ravens also passed on a bevy of talented players to overdraft Boller. Anquan Boldin, Willis McGahee, Larry Johnson, Nnamdi Asomugah, Charles Tillman, EJ Henderson and Osi Umenyiora. All of those guys are so far better than Kyle Boller that Boller cant even see them from where he is.
Boller spent five years in Baltimore and started 16 games just one time. He Threw 47 TDs against a whopping 44 INTs, in 53 games. That is close to one pick per game. Boller also fumbled the ball 23 times, all in all he accounted for 67 turnovers in 53 games.
Boller singlehandedly set the Ravens back 5 years. the Ravens trading away a first rounder to go get Boller can probably be directly linked to the Ravens not winning an additional Superbowl over the past 10 years. Boller left the Ravens in 2008, shortly after the emergence of Joe Flacco. Boller bounced around to St. Louis and Oakland as a backup, but never stuck anywhere. Boller is now out of the league.