San Diego Chargers Draft Busts - #1 Ryan Leaf

I wasn’t a Charger fan at the time, or I would have pulled my hair out. Doesn’t matter that I don’t have any on my head; I would have found it somewhere else.

have made him seem very likeable. He admits the obvious, that he was overwhelmed with the transition to the NFL and didn’t have the social skills and the maturity to deal with the failure and pressures that inevitably come with being a top QB pick in the NFL.

It’s easy to say that the Bolts should have seen his meltdown coming, but remember that he was coming out of the same system that had just produced Drew Bledsoe (who was still considered a franchise QB at that time), and they really didn’t put guys through the pre-draft grilling that they do now. Couple that with the difficulty of projecting how someone is going to react to failure at the next level and Leaf’s clearly NFL level measurables and you can see how this mistake was made.

I was relatively young at the time and Leaf was the third Chargers jersey I ever owned (after Natrone Means and Junior Seau). I thought, for sure, he’d wind up better than Peyton. He had all the physical tools, even as a huge bust, and all of his failures were mental. He just simply didn’t handle the adversity well at all (understatement). Not only could he not handle adversity in the game, he didn’t take too well to the media criticizing him too. He was just a very immature person. I wish him all the best in his future though. I never hated Leaf. I just hated him on the field.

Michigan had a great defence that year and he took quite a beating and almost pulled off the upset. I [and many others] had no reason to believe he would not carry that success into the NFL.

I bet the poor guy gets trolled like crazy.

no one has linked the DONT TALK TO ME KNOCK IT OFF meltdown yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMe0Rz1frdE

I went to HS with Ryan Leaf. True story. My dad was military and I lived in Montana during HS. Granted I was a frosh and he was a senior at the time, but I still spent time in the same halls and on the same practice field at CMR High School in Great Falls, MT.

He was always a cocky guy, always a bit of a prick and more than a bit insecure. He succeeded arguably the best HS QB in Montana State History, Dave Dickenson, when he got the starting job. Dave Dickenson was a Flutie like QB, who was a CFL star and actually was a backup for the Bolts for a year in 2001. Right after they cut Leaf, oddly. I believe Dickenson, never lost a game as a starter and won the school 2 State Championships and had his number retired immediately upon graduation.

Leaf never compared. In my freshman year we lost in the first round of the state playoffs. I was on the sidelines (not playing, mind you) but I remember seeing the frustration on our coach’s face during the whole game. Now I usually say at this part of the story that Leaf was calling his own plays during the game, pissing off the coach. That was the rumor we all heard on the sidelines and after the game, but I can’t say I never heard conclusively that it was the case. Although it fits with his personality and even if it wasn’t true, the fact that it was passed around is evidence enough to tell you his reputation.

Years after Leaf left was at WSU he was never put on the Football Hall of Fame, at least while I was still there. It really wasn’t a tough accomplishment either, there’s probably a hundred ex-p who were 1st/2nd team all state on the wall). But, he did make the Golf HOF. Yeah, our school had a golf team, but not a baseball team. Go figure.

I digress. Flash forward to when Leaf got drafted, I was just out of HS, a freshman at Maryland and I remember the whole thing playing out. As my friends can attest, while I thought it was “cool” that Leaf may go to my favorite team and honestly who doesn’t love seeing someone they know go to their favorite team, I felt like it wouldn’t end well if he played bridesmaid to Manning in the draft. There was a good part of me hoping that the Colts would take him. His meltdown came as no surprise to me, even though I was crushed when it happened. My friends never let me hear the end of it for many reasons and I felt like some bizarre epicenter of the Leaf/Charger disaster. I think the insecurity was always there and he tried to cover it up by puffing out his chest and being a tough guy, but mentally he was fragile. This all seems so obvious after seeing how his story has unfolded in the past 10 years.

When the Manning stuff was playing out 5 years later, I just imagined the same insecurity playing in Eli’s mind. Was relieved when the Chargers got Rivers instead and thought Eli would never amount to anything. Of course, that’s another story for another thread.

The 90’s were my basketball/soccer/baseball days…

Of “the season we do not mention”