As we steamroll toward the 2012 NFL draft, we take a brief look back into the annals of Buccaneer history to provide you the best and worst of the previous Tampa Bay Buccaneers drafts. These opinions are of the article's author and not intended to represent the consensus of all the staff of Buc Nation.
Throughout the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, there have been just some terrible misses in the NFL draft. Many of these occurred between 1980-94 when the franchise was mired in one of the worst runs in sports history. A lot of them occurred in the 2nd or 3rd round - which is as far back in the draft as we wanted to go to consider a bust (after all, if a 5th round pick doesn't amount to much, it's not really a bust - just a waste).
Of all of these bad apples, these are the ten I feel have been the worst picks in Franchise history.
List:10 Worst Draft picks in Buccaneers History
Previously Listed:
10. Kenyatta Walker, 1st round, pick 14, 2001
9. Dexter Jackson, WR, 2nd round, pick 27, 2008
8. Dan Sileo, DT, 3rd Round, Supplemental, 1987
7. Charles McRae, T, 1st round, pick 7, 1991
Player: Rod Jones
Position: CB
Ranking:6th
Draft: 1st Round, pick 25, 1986
When you're a cornerback in the National Football League, the last thing you want is the nickname "Toast". Yet, in the same draft that saw Bo Jackson spurn the Bucs for baseball, the Bucs had a chance to recover with their second first round pick in that draft - acquired from Miami for LB Hugh Green.
Instead of selecting other running backs like Florida's Neal Anderson or Louisville wide receiver Ernest Givens to boost the offense or drafting Pepper Johnson to bolster the defense, the Bucs decided that Rod Jones should be that pick.
It was just another colossal failure of the 1986 draft that will go down in history as one of the worst for Tampa Bay. LB Jackie Walker would come at the top of the second, completing the trio of terrible.
Still, Walker (who was bumped from this list by the other busts) had his moments, while Rod Jones was just outright terrible.
In his four years in a Buccaneer uniform, he managed four interceptions - FOUR. He was constantly beaten for long gains and would get picked on by opposing quarterbacks throughout because he simply couldn't stay with them. One of the first drinking games adopted by Buccaneer fans was to take a swig every time a pass went to Rod Jones' receiver. Two for touchdowns. Let's just say there were well inebriated orange clad fanatics in those days.
Somehow the Bucs swindled the Cincinnati Bengals to take him off their hands in a trade in 1990. He would play several more years for the Bengals but do nothing to tarnish his reputation of being the CB who gives a poor-timed toaster a run for it's money.