10 Biggest Georgia Bulldogs NFL Draft busts of all time

The Georgia Bulldogs football program has been a pipeline to the NFL for a long time, but not every player drafted out of Athens has lived up to hopes or expectations.

When it comes to the NFL Draft, there are no sure things. Players who are drafted with high hopes can end up with short, disappointing careers. On the flip side, players who are taken later in the draft (or not at all) can end up having Hall of Fame-worthy careers.

The Georgia football program has produced a little of both, but thankfully not too many of the disappointments. However, like every school, the Georgia Bulldogs have sent some players to the NFL with high draft picks who simply didn’t have the career they — or the NFL teams who picked them — expected.

Sometimes the player simply isn’t good enough, sometimes it’s due to injury, and other times it’s because of their surrounding cast, especially for quarterbacks.

Looking back at Georgia’s draft picks during the Super Bowl era, through the 2019 draft (it’s too early to call players drafted in 2020 and beyond “busts” yet), here are the 10 biggest draft day busts for the Georgia football program.

Honorable mentions:

Eric Zeier

1995 NFL Draft, Round 3, Pick 84
Cleveland Browns, 1995
Baltimore Ravens, 1996-1998
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 1999-2000

It’s hard to characterize a third-round pick as a “bust”, but in Zeier’s case, it’s probably a good assumption that the Browns thought they might be getting an eventual starting quarterback. Unfortunately, like nearly every other quarterback drafted by the Browns, it simply didn’t work out.

David Pollack

2005 NFL Draft, Round 1, Pick 17
Cincinnati Bengals, 2005-2007

You can’t really give David Pollack full “bust” status, because his career was actually off to a great start until he suffered a horrific neck injury at the start of his second year. The injury was severe enough to cause Pollack to retire after attempting to rehab for two years.