Carl Barzilauskas – 1974

All of the other clear busts mentioned above were football players who simply could not cut it in the NFL.

To have watched Carl Barzilauskas play, ever so briefly, was to see someone who simply wasn’t a football player. A big lug who was completely clueless. Whoever decided to draft him made Tanny look like Paul Brown.

Here you had college football’s main Golden Boy — Notre Dame QB when ND ruled the world, Heisman Trophy winner and all-around ABC Saturday Football favorite. Sure bet to be THE next QB stud to rule over pro football.

He slides to the 6th round in the NFL draft on rumors he may go with the AFL for the money. He slides to the 2nd round in the AFL draft because of thoughts that he, especially as the main draft stud, would land in the NFL. But Sonny Werblin grabbed Huarte, and signed him to big cash, which startled everyone since he’d just made a big to-do about tapping Namath (who, admittedly, not many aside from major college football geeks had ever heard of). For most of America, and for casual-to-moderate football fans in 1965, Huarte was THE MAN. Even here in NY, we couldn’t figure out how in heaven’s name Werblin had taken that Alabama kid with the big ears over “the greatest player in the game today.”

We weren’t far into camp before we started to see why. It became clear that Werblin was hedging his bets with Huarte, as well as setting up a 1 and 1A competition bound to garner wall-to-wall coverage for his struggling team. But Namath clearly was beating Huarte’s head in all through camp, emerging as the clear #1. Huarte was never the same after. Lasting until 1972 as a backup with a line of: G-24; Comp-19; Att-48; Yds-230; TD-1; INT-5; Rush-12; Yds-52; QB Rating-22.4 while bouncing from the Jets to the Pats in the AFL, over to the NFL for the Eagles, then after the merger to the Chiefs and Bears, then gone.

From Darling to Doorman — John Huarte ranks high for All-Time Busts, not just Jets busts.

Powell may have been traded, but Sweeney moved to LT and McElroy switched over to RT. It was still a good OL, with Fields, Alexander and Sweeney (and McElroy was much better on the right). There’s no doubt that the OL declined, but IMO O’B's sack rate had little to do with the OL and more with the offense and his tendency to hold the ball too long. As he matured, his sack % went down and under Coslet, like I said, his sack % was at it’s lowest. Moreover, it was Bill Walsh who revolutionized the passing game. Through the 80s the whole passing game was viewed differently in the NFL. Teams passed mostly when they had to, the defense knew and it was harder to pass…DBs held, used stick um, etc. That’s why I cited sack % for other 80′s QBs. O’B's sack rate was comparable. That he was sacked as much as other QBs (especially Theisman), means in my book that the OL was protecting him as well as other teams protected their QBs. The OL was good, but O’B held the ball too long and took too many needless sacks, which was also Walton’s fault. Walton coached the Jets for 7 years, only Weeb coached more Jets seasons. Weeb’s in the HOF. Joe, who left the Jets when he was 54, never coached in the NFL again. Thanks, Mr. Hess.

Sack – I agree with you about the OL, but Powell was traded at the end of 1985 (only Obie’s first full season) and the line was not quite as good thereafter, wouldn’t you agree?

Iggy,
You said it! you obviously been watching the same games i have.
my wish for Ken is to have been drafted by another Team and show what he could of done. oh well we wont be getting that chance as long as Brett Favre keeps coming back LOL….

Kenn