Chicago Bears: Top 10 draft busts of the 21st century

Honorable Mention: Quarterback Cade McNown, UCLA

Cade McNown had to make a list like this. I had no choice. If it weren’t for the fact that he missed the official list by one year, he would be a clear-cut no. 1 option to top this group of players.

Following his senior season at UCLA, McNown had quite the accolades. He was voted the best football player on the West Coast, being given the Pop Warner Memorial Trophy that year. Along with that, he was voted the Pac-10 co-offensive player of the year and given the Johnny Unitas Award as the best senior quarterback in the nation.

McNown finished third in the Heisman voting in 1998 and earned MVP in the Senior Bowl.

This all sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? On paper, this kid would have been a sure-fire starter in the NFL for a decade or longer, right?

Wrong.

Dead wrong.

McNown was selected 12th overall by the Bears in 1999 and ended up with just 515 career pass attempts — all with Chicago. He was so bad that fans ended up, at one point, chanting for head coach Dick Jauron to put Jim Miller back under center as the starter.

To put it nicely, Miller was not very good, but fans were desperate for him to return under center. That’s how bad it got for McNown.

He was also a whiner. McNown removed himself from a game at one point after playing poorly, instead of manning up and trying to correct his mistakes.

It is safe to say that McNown is one of the all-time worst first-round draft picks. His career only lasted, effectively, two years. After his two seasons with the Bears, he was traded twice and then claimed by a CFL squad but never played a down for anybody else after leaving Chicago.