The Iowa football team has a storied tradition of producing quality NFL talent, but here are four guys who didn’t quite pan out as expected.
To be fair to these guys, this isn’t us ragging on them. After all, they did play football at the highest level in the world, the NFL, and before that, they had successful careers with the Iowa football program. Based on where they were drafted, however, they failed to live up to expectations.
What was interesting about writing this article is when I was doing research, it was tough to find players who actually underperformed based on their draft position, and also, what is considered underperforming? It can be only playing a few seasons or for skill position players it can be never reaching certain “expected” milestones, or it can be never making it to the big contract.
For the Iowa football program though, they are more likely to have a late round success than an early round misses coming from the team. It’s just how the program operates. The Iowa football team, historically, hasn’t been built on the top recruits across the nation. These are guys that had to work their butts off to even get to college football. Those guys often don’t fail because of a lack of trying at the next level, and more often than not, they aren’t high-round draft picks either.
There have been just nine first-round selections in the Kirk Ferentz era if you factor in this past weekends draft when TJ Hockenson and Noah Fant both went in the first so there weren’t a ton of early round options to choose from here.
Yet, we were still able to come up with a solid list of four guys who underperformed given expectations and draft position. Here they are.
Robert Gallery
Robert Gallery is probably the freshest in Iowa football fans minds, and it’s because he was the most “recent”. Unfortunately for Gallery, he was a victim of being placed with a bad Oakland Raiders team with the highest pick in Hawkeyes history, the number 2 overall selection.
The second overall pick is expected to be a franchise cornerstone for years to come. Gallery was certainly not that. He lasted eight seasons in the NFL with seven of those in Oakland, but he had next to no success at his originally drafted position of left tackle.
The Manchester, Iowa native did have a bit more success at the guard position, but not enough to warrant the number two overall pick. After seven seasons with the Raiders, he was signed by the Seahawks but lasted just one season before being released. Robert Gallery decided to retire after signing with the Patriots effectively ending his career.
On the surface, his career doesn’t look bad. He did make 103 starts and played in all 16 games 4 out of 8 seasons, but that type of production would have made much more sense coming from a second-round draft pick, not the second overall pick.
Tom Knight
By my account, Tom Knight is the highest drafter corner in Iowa football history after getting selected 9th overall by the Arizona Cardinals in the late ’90s. After you finish reading this quick piece though, you’ll realize that isn’t a good thing.
Consider this, Desmond King, the Chargers 5th round pick three years ago has had a better career already than Tom Knight.
With a top-ten pick, you expect a shutdown corner. Instead, Knight was mostly shut down himself. He only lasted five seasons in the Arizona desert, playing a full season just twice before spending one more year in Baltimore that is entirely unforgettable. In six NFL seasons, Knight had just three interceptions and 21 passes defended.
Out of all the top-10 picks in the 1997 NFL Draft, Knight has the worst career AV (weighted career approximate value) by far.
One Arizona Cardinals website even went as far as to call Knight the 5th biggest draft bust in the history of the franchise, which is saying a lot. The Cardinals have historically been a dumpster fire.
Nick Bell
Another Raiders draft pick another Iowa football bust. Nick Bell was selected with the Raider’s second-round pick in the 1991 draft that included historically bad quarterback bust, Todd Marinovich. Al Davis was looking to a successor to the running back tandem of Roger Craig and Marcus Allen, and Bell wasn’t it.
After rushing for 1,744 yards and scoring 18 rushing touchdowns in his career with the Iowa football program, Bell didn’t top 1,000 yards total in Los Angeles.
At 6’2” 255 pounds, Bell was a bulldozer, but at the NFL level, he couldn’t bulldoze much. In three seasons, he rushed for a combined total of 853 yards for a yard per carry average of 3.8. His final season in Los Angeles was the worst though. Bell averaged 2.7 yards on 67 carries, and for obvious reasons, he was not brought back to the Raiders the next season.
As far as I can tell, Bell never resurfaced again a player in the NFL, but he did dabble in semi-pro football as a coach for a bit.
Although a second round pick doesn’t carry the expectations of a first-round pick, at the running back position, you are expected to produce regardless of draft position. It’s just the nature of the position. Failing to last more than three seasons or top more than 500 yards in any given season is a big reason why Nick Bell makes this list.
Chuck Long
The most famous guy on this list in general and one of our four Iowa football players to make up our Iowa football Mount Rushmore, Long’s NFL career was nothing short of a failure. The only quarterback from the Iowa football team to be drafted in the first round in the modern era, Long flamed out quickly with an atrocious Detroit Lions team constantly searching for an answer at their own personal revolving door of quarterbacks.
To Long’s credit, I firmly believe his success had as much to do with the environment and situation as it did with Long himself.
Regardless, Long’s production was absolutely abysmal. He started just 21 games in 6 seasons and managed to win just 4 of those games. Furthermore, he couldn’t keep the ball in the Lion’s hands as he tossed 28 interceptions to just 19 touchdowns.
Long lasted just four seasons in Detroit before being traded to Los Angeles for one season. After a season there, he spent one more season in Detroit and his career was over.
As the 12th overall pick in the NFL Draft, you expect a franchise quarterback who can lead your team to a Super Bowl. For Detroit, however, drafting Iowa football great Chuck Long led them down a deeper rabbit hole of despair.
Another Detroit Lions website even went as far as to list Long one of the top seven draft busts of all-time in Detroit Lions history. They even mentioned that he was worse than flameout Joey Harrington. That’s not good company to keep.
What’s important to remember about these guys though, is that they had fantastic Iowa football careers. Although their NFL careers didn’t quite live up to expectations, their Hawkeyes careers always will.