In my opinion, one of the largest draft busts of all time was Bobby Ruckus. Bobby Ruckus was drafted by the Colorado Yeti at 10th overall in the Season 6 NSFL Draft. Even though the draft class was under 100 players that year, it is still quite the achievement to be drafted by a team within the first couple rounds, and most of the players selected here are expected to perform well throughout their careers. The Yeti hadn't put together much of a season the year before, so they were in dire need of rookies who could make solid impacts on both sides of the ball. As a result, they picked up Ruckus in the early second round, a sign of their confidence he would become a quality defensive starter for years to come. However, Ruckus would never live up to the Yeti's expectations as he ultimately became inactive and would never make any kind of impact on the league for the Yeti. Though Ruckus had performed well in the DSFL and was in many ways worthy of his draft position, teams can never be entirely sure what will come of the players they pick, which makes drafting difficult even if the prospect has shown every indication they intend to stick around.
It was tough to decide on a top bust player with a lot of standouts, but rather than going with a player that busted from inactivity, and decided the pick based on the bust for the team. That being said, I think the biggest bust was Season 18, 5th overall pick by the San Jose Sabercats who selected commissioner and RB extraordinaire Marcella Toriki. And While Toriki has gone on to become a dominant RB in the NSFL, almost at 1000 TPE, it was a massively blown selection by San Jose. And you can’t blame them one bit as the commissioners player has to be the most reliable selection a team could make, but alas, they only saw 1 seasons worth of production from the future star.
After only one season with the Sabercats, Marcella Toriki opted out of her contract and hit the Free agent market where the New Orleans Second Line would sign her immediately. What hurts most about this one is not only did they lose a 5th overall pick for nothing, but another team got to reap the benefits of that player and to top it all off, that team is a division rival. To me, this must be the most gut punching bust of a pick in NSFL history.
Worst draft pick of all time? That is a really difficult one to talk about. I guess my immediate thought went to my own draft a long long time ago. It was the S3 draft and I was a fairly highly touted rookie and I expected to be drafted decently high and I was excited by that prospect. I was a linebacker which was a decently important position and I got along well with people. I was a really close friend with Bayley, who I expected to be taken by San Jose in the first round. As it happens, they had back to back picks in that draft and I thought how awesome it would be to be taken by them along with Bayley. Instead of me, San Jose opted to take Iyah Blewitt, a kicker. While I don't doubt that he was a solid kicker, kickers tend to not have a huge impact on the game and he probably didn't do them any favors in terms of winning. As it happens, San Jose had to wait for a title until S14, long after Blewitt was presumably off the team. Bayley and myself both ended up hall of famers and it would be interesting to see what two hall of fame defenders could have done together for San Jose at that time and maybe San Jose could have won a title much earlier than they ended up winning it.
As the first overall pick in any sporting draft, you are expected to make an immediate and lasting impact for your franchise for years down the line. If a team selects you first overall, they are wagering that you are the single best talent in the entire draft class, and one of the key pieces to lead them to major success. Unfortunately for the Second line, Bjorn Ironside was maybe the biggest dud. While the Secondline has seen success in the past seasons, even winning the Ultimus, I would say it's mostly in spite of Ironside. It's honestly a bit of a mystery as to why he was so ineffective, as his TPE and ratings were both high. Ratings aside, his performance was simply poor. As a Defensive Tackle, you make your money on sacks and tackles for loss, as those stats best demonstrate your play-stopping ability. While his 29 Sacks are a decent total, Ironside has only recorded 4 TFLs in his entire career. That's a travesty. And, to top it all off, he's going to be hanging it up now that he's in the prime of his life. The majority of the S18 class is beginning to dominate the league, but poor Bjorn will be watching on as a civilian for the rest of his days.
I think that the worst draft pick of all time was the very first pick that the league say in JJ Reigns. Reigns was from the user Shaka, a sim league veteran. A lot of people get enamored with the guy because he has been around a long time. To me? I knew that defensive tackles weren't the biggest impact in the sim engine and I also knew that Shaka was planning on launching the same kind of league and was a little frustrated when this league was launching up. I don't think he ever truly expected it to last a long time. Alas, he never truly lived up to number one pick status. He was a decent player, but he was not even close to the best player in that draft. He went inactive relatively soon and let the Orange County Otters down in this regard. I think that there is nothing inherently wrong because he had a semi productive career, but I think with how much talent can be found in an inaugural draft, this guy has to go down as just a horrible pick. The Otters still ended up being a good team and this didn't hurt them too much, but the guy was overdrafted no way around it.