Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Top 10 Draft Mistakes in team history

1993: Drafting Eric Curry sixth overall

From 1983 to 1996, the Buccaneers did not have a winning season. They were an absolute mess of a roster that became known as the “Yucks”. They were also comically bad when it came to the draft. There are honestly countless places we can go when it comes to exploring this period but we’ll start here.

Spoiler alert: Eric Curry is far from the first pass rusher you’ve seen on this list and he won’t be the last either. In fact, Curry won’t even be the only pass rusher from the University of Alabama on this list either.

Anyway, the Buccaneers had A LOT of holes to fill by 1993. That being the case, they decided to take who they thought the best player available was. With Curry’s pass-rushing partner at Alabama John Copeland (another bust) going to the Cincinnati Bengals one pick before, the Bucs decided to take Curry.

Curry became yet another example of the Buccaneers trying to find the one player that would turn around the ship. Curry rewarded the team with five sacks in his rookie year. This would be his career-high. Curry would amass 12 sacks in 59 games with the Buccaneers, no doubt having the front office kicking themselves for not drafting Willie Roaf to rebuild the offensive line or Jerome Bettis to provide a complementary power runner, both of whom were still on the board.