25 Years of Crappy 1st Round Draft Picks-1991

The 1991 Drafts were not drafts that would change the balance of power in the NFL or NBA for the most part. The best player selected out of both drafts was probably Larry Johnson, who was selected by the Charlotte Hornets. Now that we know the best, lets take a look at the worst.

NFL

Photo courtesy of daylife.com

#15 - Pittsburgh Steelers - Huey Richardson - Defensive End - Florida
A shock pick right? The easy pick would be Todd Marinovich or Dan McGwire. QBs who flamed out rather fast who were selected when Brett Favre was still on the board. Granted, Favre has had his fair share of ups and downs but the guy has a ring and is the career leader in so many passing categories it is ridiculous.  However, I went with Huey Richardson because as legend has it the Steelers had three players on their board; Alvin Harper, Mike Pritchard and Leonard Russell, with 3 other teams selecting before them. Wouldn't you know that all three were selected and then the Steelers were up. So Pittsburgh's front office scrambled to find someone they were comfortable picking before finally settling on Richardson. Richardson spent one season with Pittsburgh and recorded no stats. Chuck Noll then retired as Pittsburgh's head coach. "The Chin" Bill Cowher took over and one of his first acts of duty was to find out if he had to keep the former first round pick. The front office said no and Richardson was shipped to Washington before the 1992 season for a 7th round pick. He did last long there and was cut, only to be signed by the Jets in midseason. He finished out the season and would never be heard of on the gridiron again. This is a horrible pick because Huey did nothing of note but also because the Steelers clearly only ranked their top 14 picks in the first round which is ubsurded when they were picking 15th. A rare Steelers miss is our worst NFL pick of 1991.

NBA

Photo courtesy of hoopedia.nba.com

#25- Golden State Warriors - Shaun Vandiver - Colorado
The Rockets selection of John Turner would have qualified for this pick as Turner only played one NBA season before floating into obscurity  but Vandiver won this in a landslide. Vandiver had a successful career...in Europe. It seems that Vandiver never played a single NBA game, ala a wasted pick. And nothing is worse than a wasted pick. Vandiver recently has been taking various college coaching jobs. The draft was week and there isn't much outside of Bobby Phills still on the board at the time of this pick that would have made a big impact. However, getting nothing from a pick is the worst thing you can do and therefore Shaun Vandiver is the worst NBA pick of 1991.

Tomorrow we cover 1992. The NFL Draft of this year had many misses, while the NBA Draft had a lot of productive players throughout the draft. See ya tomorrow.