Ross Cockrell was focused on his NFL combine performance but kept noticing DB25, the 6-footer with the pink, blue and neon cleats, natural hip fluidity and a killer 40-yard dash time of 4.37 seconds. He called his dad that night and made a prediction about that standout defensive back: Justin Gilbert would be the top cornerback taken in the 2014 draft.
Eight years later, Cockrell, the 11th corner taken that year, is still in the league as a reliable defender with 47 NFL starts and a Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. But Gilbert, selected eighth overall as the first cornerback taken, played 424 NFL snaps after fizzling out in 2017 with multiple suspensions for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
Trying to explain that disparity triggers well-worn but significant questions for every NFL prospect pushed through the draft machine: Does he love the game? Will the right team to develop him? Will his work ethic carry him through the tough rookie transition? These are questions teams can't always answer, despite countless hours trying. Sometimes they truly won't know until the player enters their building as a professional.
That's why almost every scout has a player they earmarked as a potential star who never quite matched expectations. These aren't necessarily draft busts -- some are even still in the league as productive players. They just didn't meet the standard, and something in a team's scouting report didn't translate.
So we asked NFL scouts, execs and coaches to name a player who entered the draft over the past 15 or so years who they really believed could be great but fell short. The answers were sometimes surprising -- not all were first-rounders, but most were players that another team drafted. Consider these personal misses, the ones that got away.
Teams feel an attachment to all players in the draft, due to the time invested in evaluating them. And even though uncertainty fuels draft intrigue -- teams typically feel fortunate if they bat .500 in any given draft -- some misses hurt more than others. You have to hope a player's strengths outweigh a few red flags, and conviction leads to confusion when their careers don't mirror what they gleaned in the draft process. Here are 15 of those head-scratchers.
