In Your Dishonor: 13 Biggest Turkeys Of The NFL Draft Since 2000.

In honor of the resoundingly awful Gerard Warren, who was forced upon the NFL by the equally awful Cleveland Browns, I choose the 13 biggest turkeys of the NFL draft since the year 2000 (FIRST ROUND ONLY). This means no Ryan Leaf, no Tim Couch, no Akili Smith, no easy ones. Except one. Number 13 is:

13: Courtney Brown, Cleveland Browns. 1st overall, 2000 NFL Draft

Players of note taken behind him: Brian Urlacher, Chris Samuels, Thomas Jones.

Synopsis: This pick was regularly derided in the days up to and following the draft. An outcry of rage from Browns fans was muted in his first season, and then the injury bug bit him. Hard. 8 sacks in three seasons meant he was done in Cleveland. But Cleveland's trainers are notorious in their suckitude, as are their coaches and their players and...well, you get the point. The snakebit Browns are known for bad drafting; but the Washington Redskins, the longtime paper champions of the NFL, had the next two picks. They took LaVar Arrington, Brown's teammate, the prototype for many of my created linebackers (well, him and Urlacher) who was on pace to be absolutely excellent until an unfortunate meeting with a motorcycle. And they took Chris Samuels, who is still a top fifteen tackle, injury or no injury. Brown finished with 19.5 sacks, 156 tackles and 6 forced fumbles. Not a first overall performance for a first overall pick.

12:David Terrell, Chicago Bears, 8th pick, 2001 NFL Draft

Players of Note taken behind him: Steve Hutchinson, Nate Clements, Casey Hampton.

Talented. That was the word for Terrell when the Bears were able to snag him at 8th overall. Terrell, however, didn't reckon on being stuck with Jim Miller at QB, and Terrell was unable to turn that into anything worth thinking about. At 6'3, Terrell was supposed to be the big wideout the Bears needed. He turned into something, but not what the Bears needed. In the end, Terrell finished with 128 catches and 9TD's. All because he couldn't make his talent work for him when he most needed it to.

11: Troy Williamson, Minnesota Vikings, 7th Pick, 2005 NFL Draft

Players of Note taken behind him: DeMarcus Ware, Shawne Merriman, Aaron Rodgers

Mr. Hard Hands was the pick from the Oakland Raiders in exchange for Randy Moss. He claimed he had bad vision, which kind of directly indicts the Minnesota Vikings front office for taking him 7th overall, since the Falcons got the awesome Roddy White later in the first round, and San Diego took Vincent Jackson in the second. Currently Mr. Hard Hands is in Jacksonville, which explains why they've gone with MJD and a cloud of dust. Seriously, Chester Bennington could probably be a better NFL WR than Williamson, yet Williamson continues the tradition of blaming everyone but himself for his problems, saying he'd like to fight Brad Childress. Here's a thought: YOU SUCKED! YOU STILL SUCK! 84 catches for barely 1000 yards and four TD's? Marvin Harrison usually had those before week five!

10:Joey Harrington, Detroit Lions, 3rd overall pick, 2002 NFL Draft.

Players of Note taken behind him: Dwight Freeney, Ed Reed, Bryant McKinnie.

Yes, Harrington could be higher. Harrington also SHOULD be higher. But I place him at ten for one reason: it's Detroit. There was never any chance he would succeed. Technically, he was supposed to, but really, it's the franchise that drove Barry Sanders into retirement and went 0-16; was it really surprising that this turned out the way it did?

9:William Green, Cleveland Browns, 16th pick, 2002 NFL Draft

Players of Note taken behind him: Lito Sheppard, Bart Scott, (undrafted) Charles Grant.

William Green had a hard life coming up. I understand that. But you can do one of two things: you can try to beat it back or you can let it consume you. Green took door number two. After an ok rookie season, he then proceeded to send his career down the toilet with the help of a plunger. Numerous off-field incidents and awful performances on the field pretty much turned him into a failed first round pick. Green was not a particularly nice guy; not that many football players are, but his idiocy qualified him for the number nine slot more than anything else. How hard is it to hold on to a starting job with the Cleveland Browns?

8:Alex Smith, San Francisco 49ers, first pick overall, 2005 NFL Draft

Players of Note taken behind him: Ronnie Brown, Jammal Brown, Logan Mankins

Smith is here under protest. No, not because he's played well (he hasn't) but because a 49ers fan friend of mine threatened to kill me and commit harakiri if I didn't find a spot for him. Seriously, Smith deserves this spot, make no mistake. Smith opened his rookie season with one touchdown pass against 11 interceptions. 11 interceptions. Nowhere to go but up, right? Uh, no. Nothing is this bad, you can't blame the coordinators for this one. Or the receivers, they got him Darrell Jackson and Ashley Lelie when Lelie wasn't an empty jersey; and that didn't help. Smith's awfulness is legendary, but when you lose a QB battle with SHAWN HILL you deserve whatever spot you get in this list. And the reason he's not higher has to leave you wondering who's next...you won't be surprised by this one.

7:Mike Williams, Detroit Lions, 10th pick, 2005 NFL Draft.

Players of Note taken behind him: Derrick Johnson, Frank Gore, Justin Tuck

Mike Williams. At USC, he was THE target for Matt Leinart. He was the third leg of the triumvirate of destruction, my unofficial, too long, uncool name for Leinart, Bush and Williams. Then he made a fatal error: following the error of the somewhat insane Maurice Clarett, Williams declared for the draft despite being only two years removed from H.S. (NFL rules state you must be THREE years removed from high school, and the federal judge who told Clarett differently should be ashamed). This wouldn't have been so bad if Williams had not hired an agent. IN ALL SPORTS, once you hire an agent you and the NCAA part ways. Williams did not play football in the interim; instead he was supposedly working out, and was selected by the Detroit Lions. And then he allowed the drudgery of playing, living, and actually knowing that Detroit exists to weigh him down, and he got fat and bad. A sad end, but not one totally unexpected, especially when he left before he was supposed to. Before Pete Carroll could impart how to actually play the game to him.

6:Gerard Warren, Cleveland Browns, 3rd pick overall, 2001 NFL Draft

Players of Note taken after him: LaDanian Tomlinson, Richard Seymour, Chad Johnson-Ochocinco (2nd round)

My god, he's bad. Fat, bad, ridiculously awful. How this goof was the third overall pick is still beyond me. This guy calls himself "Big Money." Would that be the money he stole from the Cleveland Browns? 30 sacks and 260 tackles, and that was worth that much money, huh? And since I can't seem to impart how bad the Cleveland Browns are at drafting, how about the Browns themselves? Since they came back from the dead, Art Modell, and now Steve Bisciotti, have made the Ravens one of the elite teams in the NFL. The Browns seem to fail miserably in the first round, except for Joe Thomas, who I'm sure is questioning his decision to play football. He probably wishes he had done something more productive with his life, like act with Dane Cook or appear in porn movies. If you're the first-round pick of the Browns, retire now. You'll save yourself a world of heartache. Thankfully, we're done with the Browns. Or are we?

5: Mike Williams, Buffalo Bills, 4th pick, 2002 NFL Draft

Players of Note taken after him:Quentin Jammer, Albert Haynesworth, Phillip Buchanon.

The Buffalo Bills have never been able to live down the four consecutive Super Bowl losses. Every opportunity they've gotten to try to rejoin the ranks of the AFC elite has blown up in their faces. (The Drew Bledsoe Era is best forgotten.) So when Mike Williams was drafted by the Bills at 4, they envisioned a franchise tackle, a guy who would protect the blind side of their QB's for years. Williams had protected his QB's for his career at Texas, how much more difficult could it be to do so in the NFL?

Plenty.

See, at 360 pounds, not too many people in college football can get around you to the QB. But in the NFL, in the AFC East in particular, at tackle you're usually matched up with fast D-ends and sometimes powerful ends who drive you back, sometimes right into the guy you're supposed to protect. And when you're 360 pounds, you're not going to catch up with guys like Richard Seymour. Then, you're much more susceptible to injury. And Williams just couldn't get the job done in the end, because his size was an impediment. When was the last time a 350+ pound O-tackle was successful?

4: Erasmus James, Minnesota Vikings, 18th pick, 2005 NFL Draft

Notable Players drafted after him: Roddy White, Nick Collins (2nd round), Marion Barber (4th round)

James' flameout doesn't compare to that of Smith; neither Williams' nor Harrington's. So why is he ranked higher on this list than any of them?

Because James was a defensive end, the first taken in the draft. Not enough of a reason? Then I'll give you another: James was the defensive end the Vikings needed when their defensive front four was beginning to falter. He should have teamed with Kevin Williams and Pat Williams to terrorize and decimate the NFC North's QB's. Instead he got hurt and got in a bar fight. He earned the nickname 'The Eraser' because of his ability to get to the QB. After a 28 tackle, four-sack rookie season, he then got injured. Repeatedly. He finished his career with 37 tackles and five sacks. And so his sad career came to a depressing end; but it did indirectly allow the Vikings to grab Jared Allen three years later, so that's something.

3: Robert Gallery, Oakland Raiders, 2nd Overall Pick, 2004 NFL Draft.

Notable Players taken behind him:Larry Fitzgerald, the late Sean Taylor, Phillip Rivers.

Ugh. A three-letter response is all that is required, but I'll give you more.

Gallery has ideal size. By that, I mean he's in the JonOg (for my money, the best OT in the past twenty years)/Orlando Pace category. The Raiders envisioned him as the cornerstone in a powerful blocking attack that would lead them back into the top of the heap. Something was powerful, and they were at the top of the heap...if the heap was a heap of dung. Gallery, as so many high picks are, was held responsible for the failure of his unit, but think about this: in 2006, at LT, he was part of one of the worst performances by an NFL OL in history: a 9-sack performance by Shawne Merriman and the San Diego Chargers. That year, Gallery gave up an unreal 10.5 sacks in 10 games. In that regard, Gallery is a failure despite his move to LG, which has helped his career and kept him from being referred to as a Hiroshima-level failure. Unlike the next guy.

2: Charles Rogers, Detroit Lions, 2nd overall pick, 2003 NFL Draft.

Rogers had ideal size. He was fast, he was strong, he drew comparisions to Randy Moss. That's a good thing, but, uhhhhhh...as it turned out, he was similar to Moss in more ways than anyone, including the Detroit Lions, would like to admit.

Rogers got off to a roaring start in his rookie season, making 22 catches and scoring three times in his first five games. But when doing a speed drill with Dre Bly, Rogers broke his collarbone, the fourth worst injury a WR can have after a broken hand, arm, or leg. Gone for the season. Rogers tried agan in 2004, but on the third play of the 2004 season Rogers broke his collarbone again. Gone for the season. Then the problems REALLY began when Rogers violated the drug policy for the third time, being suspended for four games. Because of this, the Lions demanded the money he'd been paid in his signing bonus back, eventually getting a judgment of $8 million dollars. Also it came out that Rogers had failed drug tests every year at MSU. More likely to appear on the cover of High Times then on the cover of the Lions Media Guide, Rod Marinelli derricked the wayward WR, and ended what probably should have been a hall of fame career quickly. Summary: Charles Rogers is an idiot.

12 down, one left. And since number 1 isn't Rogers, well, who could it be? (Cue Colin Hay singing "Who Can It Be Now?")

Ready?

1: JaMarcus Russell, Oakland Raiders, 1st overall pick, 2007 NFL Draft.

Notable players drafted after him: Calvin Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Patrick Willis.

There aren't enough curse words in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or Cantonese to express the dismay and contempt I, and other Raiders fans, hold him in.

Russell held out all throughout training camp while the Raiders took it in the shorts throughout the 2007 season. Finally Russell got Al Davis to give him 68 million dollars, 31.5 million of it guaranteed. For this, Russell and his agent should have been jailed for abuse of the elderly. To put it in perspective, Russell's performance resembles that of Akili Smith's. Only worse. His season to date: 96-205, for 1,064 yards, sacked TWENTY-FOUR times for 142 yards of loss, two touchdowns, NINE interceptions, SIX fumbles, FIVE lost. A 47.7 QB rating. I assume I could stick Mike Shinoda out there with the members of koRn and Scott Stapp blocking for him running a triple option on every godforsaken play and they could pull off a 47.7. Benched by the should-never-have-been-hired-Tom Cable, woman beater extrordinaire, for Bruce Gradkowski. Gradkowski had an awful game today and Russell wasn't even a thought for that fat tub of frog slobber. So...lol raiders?

No, it doesn't get to end that way. The sad part is, Russell still has a chance to be average. And that's all. But getting paid Tom Brady/Peyton Manning money for 1/19th of the performance...I may have a stroke just thinking about it. How come I can't root for a GOOD team?