StocktontoMalone wrote:I was thinking that we should change topics from all that anger in the football thread.....
I was thinking.....probably the one draft bungle that comes to mind is Portland and Houston passing up Jordan to pick Olajuwon and Sam Bowie(WHO?) lol
Another one would have to be the NE Patriots passing up Danny Marino, Willie Gault, and Darrell Green to pick up Tony
Useless Eason in 1983. They almost had Jim Kelly who went one pick before at 14.
Are you kidding? It might have been dick bad for the Pats to pass, but the Steelers also passed on Dan Marino, who was a Pitt product and who had high hopes of being drafted by the Steelers. Instead of landing Marino, the Steelers decided to draft Gabriel Rivera, D-tackle from Texas Tech! As brilliant as the Rooney's were at building a team, this wasn't one of their field days.
I remember in '04 when they drafted Roethlisberger, Cowher was very high on Offensive Tackle Shawn Andrews, and most of Pittsburgh thought he would be our choice. Me personally, I never thought Roethlisberger would land at #11, and our defense was SO bad in 2003, we were in desperate need of a corner, so I opted for Dunta Robinson, who went to the Texans a pick before at #10. When Ben fell to us, and while we were on the clock we were saying that if they atleast don't take a look at this dude from Miami from Ohio, then it will have the Marino sighting all over again. Of course, they made the right choice.
Here's what Rooney said in his book on passing on Marino.
Off the field, some questions that have surrounded the team for years are being answered in a new book by team chairman Dan Rooney.
"My 75 Years With The Pittsburgh Steelers And The NFL" answers some of the great mysteries, like why the Steelers did not pick University of Pittsburgh quarterback Dan Marino in the 1983 draft.
Rooney writes that he was ready to draft Marino at the urging of a local sports writer, but "I made a mistake. (Instead of telling our front office) I thought it up myself, I told them it was the writer's idea. And that was the end of it."
Years later, in the 2004 NFL draft, that earlier misstep influenced Rooney's draft-day strategy.
"I couldn't bear the thought of passing on another great quarterback prospect the way we had passed on Dan Marino in 1983, so I steered the conversation around to (Ben) Roethlisberger," Rooney writes in the book.
The Steelers also cut Johnny Unitas! DOH!!!
