Houston Texans: ESPN Deems David Carr As The Biggest Draft Bust?

Here we are Houston Texans’ fans, just a little under two weeks away from this year’s NFL Draft.

The buzz is starting to get louder as the team is bringing gobs of college guys in for workouts and the scouting team is in full-analysis mode.

The Houston Texans’ war room is already starting to come together as Rick Smith, Bill O’Brien — and to certain extent — Bob McNair all working in concert to ensure that this draft yields the most in terms of production.

Drafting players isn’t an easy task and sometimes all of the research goes out the window.

One just has to take a chance and hope the pick turns out to be a gem.

The earlier rounds of the draft are usually can’t miss as far as picks but the later rounds are where you find the gems, the diamond in the rough.

Tom Brady anybody?

But there are times where all of that faith and might are invested into a pick and they turn out to stink into hog heaven.

We’d all deem those types of guys BUSTS.

Who would you say is the biggest draft bust of all-time?

ESPN got responses from their beat reporters from all 32 teams and Sarah Barshop weighed in, indicating that David Carr, the franchise’s first draft pick ever, was also the biggest bust.

Here’s what she had to say:

"“Carr has the distinction of being the first player drafted by the Texans before the franchise’s first season in 2002. But in his first year, he was sacked 76 times, an NFL record. Carr spent only five seasons with the Texans before Houston moved on and traded for Matt Schaub.”"

I beg to differ with this notion.

I think Carr was an excellent quarterback to come out of Fresno State and was highly-regarded as one of the top prospects in the 2002 draft.

One can talk about the sacks but Carr did not have the tools around him to succeed.

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His offensive line was shoddy and although there were some gems to come out in later years surrounding him — such as Andre Johnson, Chester Pitts and many more — Carr did not have a chance to succeed.

The franchise was in its infancy and fans did not expect for this team to contend for anything.

We were still hungover by the exit of the Houston Oilers and had been without an NFL franchise for five long years from 1997 to 2002.

McNair was our savior, bringing football back to Houston and plucking down the hefty price tag just south of $1 billion to bring football back to Kirby Drive with a new stadium replace the beloved but antiquated Astrodome.

We all were rooting for Carr to do well but he just had too many cards in the deck stacked against him.

Ultimately, when Dom Capers was shown the door after a 2-14 record in 2006 — notice the pattern anyone? — so did Carr and hometown favorite Gary Kubiak as well as Matt Schaub became the successors.

One can make an argument that Schaub was the best quarterback we’ve ever had until 2013 when we started wondering if we needed a tombstone for his arm.

If he was that bad, he would’ve been out of the league but Carr went on to stick around six more seasons as a backup.

He even was able to pick up a Super Bowl ring at his stop with the New York Giants back in the 2011 season.

So no, Carr wasn’t a bust.