Ravens Top 10 Worst Draft Picks Of the Last 10 Years: #2 Mark Clayton
With The Draft upcoming, i thought it would be appropriate 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.
Now we get to the big time busts. We probably all know who is number one, but first we have to address number 2, Mark Clayton.
Clayton was taken with the 22nd overall pick in 2005. He was supposed to be the Ravens solution at WR, the top QB target for the next 10-15 years. Now, 8 years later, Clayton has been out of the league for years.
After a slow rookie year, Clayton exploded onto the scene with a 939 yard season in 2006. He looked like he was poised to breakout and look like a true number one WR for the first time in his career. Then came 2007. 2007 destroyed the careers of many players on this list, That year no one on the team could stay healthy and Clayton was no exception. He finished the season with less than 550 yards. He had fought through injuries and managed to play all 16 games, so He was still given the benefit of the doubt. After two more unproductive seasons in 2008 and 2009 Clayton was traded to the Rams. Clayton looked good for the first few weeks of the season, but a torn ACL in week 5 ended his career.
Perhaps the thing that makes the Clayton pick so tough to swallow, has nothing to do with Clayton at all. The Ravens were busy trying to turn fellow bust Kyle Boller into a star QB, so instead of taking a much better QB who was available, they decided to take Clayton to help out Boller. If you haven’t caught on to what I am saying, here is the short version. The Ravens passed on Aaron Rodgers to take Clayton. They also passed on Roddy White.
Clayton played just 5 1/2 seasons in the league.