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Holding the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft is both a blessing and a curse.
Teams that hold the top pick in the draft often come off of a terrible season and are granted the opportunity to turn their franchise around. However, the team picking first also has the chance to make a massive mistake and plunge the club into further ignominy.
The simple reality of the NFL draft is that it's a guessing game. Projections on college prospects can differ significantly from the actual result. The first player taken in the annual player selection meeting rarely ends up being the best pro player in the draft class.
That does not mean there haven't been success stories from previous top picks. These 10 players are the best No. 1 overall selections in the NFL draft since 2000.
2025 NFL MOCK DRAFT: Expert predictions following major moves in free agency
For the first few years of his career, Smith was much closer to ending up on this list's counterpart of worst No. 1 first-overall picks in the last three decades. As a rookie, he went 2-5 as a starter and threw one touchdown and 11 interceptions. Struggles with injuries and a revolving door of offensive coordinators severely hampered the early returns on Smith's career.
However, the 49ers were patient with Smith, and when Jim Harbaugh took over as the team's head coach in 2011, Smith's career trajectory did a 180. In 2011, Smith helped lead the 49ers to a 13-3 record and a playoff win in the divisional round.
He played eight more seasons in the NFL after that – mainly for the Chiefs and head coach Andy Reid – and went 67-33-1 with a 65.3% completion rate and 131 touchdowns to 51 interceptions. He earned three Pro Bowl nods with Kansas City and was the Comeback Player of the Year with Washington in 2020 before retiring.
Williams' first season in the NFL wasn't everything the Texans hoped for off of the bat, but he proved his worthiness of the first overall pick status in Year 2. After a 4.5-sack debut season, Williams tallied 14 sacks, two forced fumbles and returned a fumble for a touchdown in 2007, earning himself second-team All-Pro honors. He followed that up with a 12-sack season with four forced fumbles in 2008 for his first Pro Bowl season, then had another Pro Bowl outing in 2009.
In six seasons with Houston, Williams set franchise records in sacks and forced fumbles, though his marks were eventually surpassed by J.J. Watt.
After leaving the Texans, Williams continued his success in Buffalo, compiling 43 sacks in four seasons with two more Pro Bowl nods, a second-team All-Pro season and a first-team All-Pro year in 2014. He played his final season in 2016.
Considering how much Luck immediately lived up to the massive hype he had as a college prospect, it feels wrong to have him so far down on this list. However, the brevity of his career holds him back from a higher spot.
Luck was a Pro Bowl quarterback in four of his six seasons in the NFL, including in his rookie year, when he took a Colts team that went 2-14 the year before to an 11-5 record. In his third season, he led the NFL in passing touchdowns (40) and helped bring Indianapolis to the infamous "Deflategate" AFC championship game that year.
Things were never as good after that. Luck missed most of the 2015 season with various injuries, went 8-7 in 2016 then missed the 2017 season while recovering from a shoulder injury that required surgery. In 2018, his last NFL season, the Stanford product went 10-6, won a playoff game in the wild-card round, earned a fourth Pro Bowl nod and won Comeback Player of the Year. He abruptly announced his retirement before the start of the 2019 season.
Vick revolutionized the idea of what a quarterback could look like when he reached the NFL soon after the turn of the century. He paired his outstanding athleticism with a cannon arm to be one of the best dual-threat gunslingers the game has ever seen.
Vick earned three Pro Bowl nods and finished in the top four in MVP voting twice (2002 and 2004) in his first six seasons. In 2006, he became the first quarterback to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a single season and paired it with 2,474 passing yards and 20 passing touchdowns.
Despite all of Vick's personal success, the Falcons went 38-28-1 in his 67 starts across the first six seasons of his career. Atlanta made the playoffs only twice (2002, 2004) and won one postseason game each time.
He was suspended for the 2007 and 2008 seasons for his involvement in a dog fighting ring that also landed him in prison.
Vick made a comeback in 2009 with the Eagles. The following year, he had his first season with more than 3,000 passing yards to go with a career-high 21 passing touchdowns, 676 rushing yards and a career-high nine rushing touchdowns. Vick finished as the Offensive Player of the Year runner-up and won the Comeback Player of the Year award. Philadelphia went to the playoffs with Vick under center that year but lost its first game in the wild-card round.
Vick played five more seasons in the NFL – three more with the Eagles, one with the Jets and one with the Steelers – and compiled a 15-20 record as a starter in those years. After he failed to sign with a team for the 2016 season, he officially retired in 2017.
Like others on this list, Goff's debut season was less than superb. He started seven games and lost all of them with a completion rate below 55% and five touchdowns to seven interceptions. The years since have been far more successful.
Goff's next couple of years with the Rams earned him back-to-back Pro Bowl nods with 8,492 yards, 60 touchdowns and 19 interceptions across those two seasons. In 2018, the latter of those two years, Goff led the Rams to the Super Bowl in a season in which Los Angeles also led the NFC in offensive yards per game.
The Rams traded Goff in 2021 to Detroit for (spoiler alert) another player higher up on this list, and the Cal product continued his success with the Lions. He's been a Pro Bowler in two of his last three seasons, and he just led the team to its highest regular-season win total (15) in franchise history while finishing fifth in MVP voting.
Burrow's first season was cut short when he tore his ACL and MCL in Week 11, but he more than showed off his prowess in his sophomore campaign.
He led the league in completion rate (70.4%) and yards per pass attempt (8.9) in the 2021 regular season and brought the Bengals to the Super Bowl. In doing so, he ended the Bengals' 31-year playoff win drought by defeating the Raiders in the wild-card round, then beat the top-seeded Titans in the divisional round and topped it all off by taking down Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the AFC championship game.
The following year, Burrow rose to the levels of his heightened expectations, leading the Bengals to a 12-4 record to win the division. For a second straight season, he brought the team to the AFC championship game, though they lost to the Chiefs, the eventual Super Bowl champions. Burrow earned his first Pro Bowl nod and finished fourth in MVP voting that year.
In 2023, Burrow again only played 10 games, this time after injuring his wrist in Week 11. Last season, he had an outstanding year again in his return from a season-ending injury the year prior, setting a new career-high mark with a 70.6% completion rate while leading the league in yards (4,918) and passing touchdowns (43). Cincinnati missed the playoffs by one game, partly because of their slow, 4-8 start to the season.
Like in 2021, he won the Comeback Player of the Year award and finished fourth in MVP voting.
Besides his rookie season – in which he missed five games with a high ankle sprain and a concussion – and the 2019 season – in which he was suspended for six games – Garrett has been a Pro Bowl defensive end every year of his career (six times).
He has been a first- or second-team All-Pro in each of those years, including back-to-back first-team All-Pro honors in his last two seasons. In 2023, Garrett won the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year award and finished third in voting for the same award last year.
In his eight seasons so far, the Texas A&M product has tallied 102.5 sacks, which is the second-most in the NFL since 2017 behind only T.J. Watt. He's also forced 20 fumbles and compiled 352 combined tackles in that span.
Garrett is still one of the NFL's most prolific defenders and earlier this offseason became the highest-paid defender in NFL history. Given that he's still younger than 30 years old, the career Brown is on a great pace to crack the top 10 of all-time career NFL sack leaders if he stays healthy.
Newton started strong with one of the greatest seasons by a rookie quarterback in NFL history. He was the first rookie to throw for more than 4,000 yards, the first rookie to throw for more than 400 yards in back-to-back games and still the first and only rookie to throw for more than 4,000 yards and rush for more than 700 yards. The Auburn product still holds the record for most combined touchdowns (35) and combined yards (4,784) by a rookie in NFL history as well.
Newton kept that momentum going early in his career, as he is still the only No. 1 overall pick to win an NFL MVP award since the turn of the century and the first since 1998 NFL draftee Peyton Manning.
That came in the 2015 season, the fifth of Newton's career when he led Carolina to a franchise-best 15-1 record and its second Super Bowl appearance in team history. That year, Newton threw for 3,837 yards and 35 touchdowns and ran for 636 yards and 10 rushing touchdowns. Newton is still the only quarterback in NFL history to total at least 30 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns in the same season.
The Panthers entered the playoffs with 31 unanswered points in the first half of their divisional round game against the Seahawks before winning the NFC championship game over the Cardinals 49-15. However, Carolina's offense was no match for the overwhelming Broncos' defense in Super Bowl 50, and the Panthers lost 24-10.
Newton's career slowly unraveled in the years that followed as injuries started to pile up. Though he never reached the heights of his MVP season again, he still owns several NFL records: most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback in NFL history (75), most games in NFL history with a passing touchdown and rushing touchdown (32) and most passing yards by a quarterback in a debut game (422) among them.
Of all of the first overall picks since 2000, only three have won the Super Bowl as a starter: offensive tackle Eric Fisher, the player holding the No. 1 spot on this list... and Stafford.
The former Georgia Bulldog did not get much recognition for his incredible production for the first dozen years of his career, all of which were in Detroit. Perhaps it was because of the lack of success those Lions teams had, but Stafford should be among the furthest from blame for those losing seasons.
From 2009 to 2020, he completed 62.6% of his passes with 282 touchdowns and 144 interceptions. He averaged 3,759 yards per season and had eight seasons with more than 4,000 passing yards – including one (2011) – with more than 5,000.
Stafford's first year with a different team – 2021, with the Rams – he threw for 4,886 yards, 41 touchdowns and 17 interceptions and won the Super Bowl. All before earning his second Pro Bowl nod and down-ballot MVP votes in 2023.
In 2024, Stafford passed Eli Manning for 10th all-time in career passing yards.
Manning isn't just the only first overall pick since 2000 to win multiple Super Bowls; he's also the only one with a Super Bowl MVP – and he has two of them.
The younger brother of fellow first-overall pick and five-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning has fewer regular season accolades than his sibling, but Eli does have four Pro Bowl nods (2008, 2011, 2012, 2015). He also has the unique distinction of being the only first-overall pick since 2000 to not play a single snap for the team that initially drafted him after the Chargers traded his rights to the Giants on draft night.
If the regular season were all that mattered, Manning's career would not stack up to the successes that other top picks have had. However, his two Super Bowl wins – over the dynastic, Tom Brady-led Patriots, no less – are enough to push him to the top of this list. Before Stafford's 2024 season, Manning was in the top 10 in career completions, passing yards and passing touchdowns as well.
Manning always found a way to hit a second gear in the postseason though. He still holds the NFL records for most pass attempts (163), completions (106) and passing yards (1,219) in a single postseason from his 2011 Super Bowl run.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL draft: Best No. 1 overall pick selections since 2000
Continue reading...
Teams that hold the top pick in the draft often come off of a terrible season and are granted the opportunity to turn their franchise around. However, the team picking first also has the chance to make a massive mistake and plunge the club into further ignominy.
The simple reality of the NFL draft is that it's a guessing game. Projections on college prospects can differ significantly from the actual result. The first player taken in the annual player selection meeting rarely ends up being the best pro player in the draft class.
That does not mean there haven't been success stories from previous top picks. These 10 players are the best No. 1 overall selections in the NFL draft since 2000.
2025 NFL MOCK DRAFT: Expert predictions following major moves in free agency
Best No. 1 overall picks in NFL draft since 2000
10. QB Alex Smith (2005)
For the first few years of his career, Smith was much closer to ending up on this list's counterpart of worst No. 1 first-overall picks in the last three decades. As a rookie, he went 2-5 as a starter and threw one touchdown and 11 interceptions. Struggles with injuries and a revolving door of offensive coordinators severely hampered the early returns on Smith's career.
However, the 49ers were patient with Smith, and when Jim Harbaugh took over as the team's head coach in 2011, Smith's career trajectory did a 180. In 2011, Smith helped lead the 49ers to a 13-3 record and a playoff win in the divisional round.
He played eight more seasons in the NFL after that – mainly for the Chiefs and head coach Andy Reid – and went 67-33-1 with a 65.3% completion rate and 131 touchdowns to 51 interceptions. He earned three Pro Bowl nods with Kansas City and was the Comeback Player of the Year with Washington in 2020 before retiring.
9. DE Mario Williams (2006)
Williams' first season in the NFL wasn't everything the Texans hoped for off of the bat, but he proved his worthiness of the first overall pick status in Year 2. After a 4.5-sack debut season, Williams tallied 14 sacks, two forced fumbles and returned a fumble for a touchdown in 2007, earning himself second-team All-Pro honors. He followed that up with a 12-sack season with four forced fumbles in 2008 for his first Pro Bowl season, then had another Pro Bowl outing in 2009.
In six seasons with Houston, Williams set franchise records in sacks and forced fumbles, though his marks were eventually surpassed by J.J. Watt.
After leaving the Texans, Williams continued his success in Buffalo, compiling 43 sacks in four seasons with two more Pro Bowl nods, a second-team All-Pro season and a first-team All-Pro year in 2014. He played his final season in 2016.
8. QB Andrew Luck (2012)
Considering how much Luck immediately lived up to the massive hype he had as a college prospect, it feels wrong to have him so far down on this list. However, the brevity of his career holds him back from a higher spot.
Luck was a Pro Bowl quarterback in four of his six seasons in the NFL, including in his rookie year, when he took a Colts team that went 2-14 the year before to an 11-5 record. In his third season, he led the NFL in passing touchdowns (40) and helped bring Indianapolis to the infamous "Deflategate" AFC championship game that year.
Things were never as good after that. Luck missed most of the 2015 season with various injuries, went 8-7 in 2016 then missed the 2017 season while recovering from a shoulder injury that required surgery. In 2018, his last NFL season, the Stanford product went 10-6, won a playoff game in the wild-card round, earned a fourth Pro Bowl nod and won Comeback Player of the Year. He abruptly announced his retirement before the start of the 2019 season.
7. QB Michael Vick (2001)
Vick revolutionized the idea of what a quarterback could look like when he reached the NFL soon after the turn of the century. He paired his outstanding athleticism with a cannon arm to be one of the best dual-threat gunslingers the game has ever seen.
Vick earned three Pro Bowl nods and finished in the top four in MVP voting twice (2002 and 2004) in his first six seasons. In 2006, he became the first quarterback to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a single season and paired it with 2,474 passing yards and 20 passing touchdowns.
Despite all of Vick's personal success, the Falcons went 38-28-1 in his 67 starts across the first six seasons of his career. Atlanta made the playoffs only twice (2002, 2004) and won one postseason game each time.
He was suspended for the 2007 and 2008 seasons for his involvement in a dog fighting ring that also landed him in prison.
Vick made a comeback in 2009 with the Eagles. The following year, he had his first season with more than 3,000 passing yards to go with a career-high 21 passing touchdowns, 676 rushing yards and a career-high nine rushing touchdowns. Vick finished as the Offensive Player of the Year runner-up and won the Comeback Player of the Year award. Philadelphia went to the playoffs with Vick under center that year but lost its first game in the wild-card round.
Vick played five more seasons in the NFL – three more with the Eagles, one with the Jets and one with the Steelers – and compiled a 15-20 record as a starter in those years. After he failed to sign with a team for the 2016 season, he officially retired in 2017.
6. QB Jared Goff (2016)
Like others on this list, Goff's debut season was less than superb. He started seven games and lost all of them with a completion rate below 55% and five touchdowns to seven interceptions. The years since have been far more successful.
Goff's next couple of years with the Rams earned him back-to-back Pro Bowl nods with 8,492 yards, 60 touchdowns and 19 interceptions across those two seasons. In 2018, the latter of those two years, Goff led the Rams to the Super Bowl in a season in which Los Angeles also led the NFC in offensive yards per game.
The Rams traded Goff in 2021 to Detroit for (spoiler alert) another player higher up on this list, and the Cal product continued his success with the Lions. He's been a Pro Bowler in two of his last three seasons, and he just led the team to its highest regular-season win total (15) in franchise history while finishing fifth in MVP voting.
5. QB Joe Burrow (2020)
Burrow's first season was cut short when he tore his ACL and MCL in Week 11, but he more than showed off his prowess in his sophomore campaign.
He led the league in completion rate (70.4%) and yards per pass attempt (8.9) in the 2021 regular season and brought the Bengals to the Super Bowl. In doing so, he ended the Bengals' 31-year playoff win drought by defeating the Raiders in the wild-card round, then beat the top-seeded Titans in the divisional round and topped it all off by taking down Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the AFC championship game.
The following year, Burrow rose to the levels of his heightened expectations, leading the Bengals to a 12-4 record to win the division. For a second straight season, he brought the team to the AFC championship game, though they lost to the Chiefs, the eventual Super Bowl champions. Burrow earned his first Pro Bowl nod and finished fourth in MVP voting that year.
In 2023, Burrow again only played 10 games, this time after injuring his wrist in Week 11. Last season, he had an outstanding year again in his return from a season-ending injury the year prior, setting a new career-high mark with a 70.6% completion rate while leading the league in yards (4,918) and passing touchdowns (43). Cincinnati missed the playoffs by one game, partly because of their slow, 4-8 start to the season.
Like in 2021, he won the Comeback Player of the Year award and finished fourth in MVP voting.
4. DE Myles Garrett (2017)
Besides his rookie season – in which he missed five games with a high ankle sprain and a concussion – and the 2019 season – in which he was suspended for six games – Garrett has been a Pro Bowl defensive end every year of his career (six times).
He has been a first- or second-team All-Pro in each of those years, including back-to-back first-team All-Pro honors in his last two seasons. In 2023, Garrett won the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year award and finished third in voting for the same award last year.
In his eight seasons so far, the Texas A&M product has tallied 102.5 sacks, which is the second-most in the NFL since 2017 behind only T.J. Watt. He's also forced 20 fumbles and compiled 352 combined tackles in that span.
Garrett is still one of the NFL's most prolific defenders and earlier this offseason became the highest-paid defender in NFL history. Given that he's still younger than 30 years old, the career Brown is on a great pace to crack the top 10 of all-time career NFL sack leaders if he stays healthy.
3. QB Cam Newton (2011)
Newton started strong with one of the greatest seasons by a rookie quarterback in NFL history. He was the first rookie to throw for more than 4,000 yards, the first rookie to throw for more than 400 yards in back-to-back games and still the first and only rookie to throw for more than 4,000 yards and rush for more than 700 yards. The Auburn product still holds the record for most combined touchdowns (35) and combined yards (4,784) by a rookie in NFL history as well.
Newton kept that momentum going early in his career, as he is still the only No. 1 overall pick to win an NFL MVP award since the turn of the century and the first since 1998 NFL draftee Peyton Manning.
That came in the 2015 season, the fifth of Newton's career when he led Carolina to a franchise-best 15-1 record and its second Super Bowl appearance in team history. That year, Newton threw for 3,837 yards and 35 touchdowns and ran for 636 yards and 10 rushing touchdowns. Newton is still the only quarterback in NFL history to total at least 30 passing touchdowns and 10 rushing touchdowns in the same season.
The Panthers entered the playoffs with 31 unanswered points in the first half of their divisional round game against the Seahawks before winning the NFC championship game over the Cardinals 49-15. However, Carolina's offense was no match for the overwhelming Broncos' defense in Super Bowl 50, and the Panthers lost 24-10.
Newton's career slowly unraveled in the years that followed as injuries started to pile up. Though he never reached the heights of his MVP season again, he still owns several NFL records: most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback in NFL history (75), most games in NFL history with a passing touchdown and rushing touchdown (32) and most passing yards by a quarterback in a debut game (422) among them.
2. QB Matthew Stafford (2009)
Of all of the first overall picks since 2000, only three have won the Super Bowl as a starter: offensive tackle Eric Fisher, the player holding the No. 1 spot on this list... and Stafford.
The former Georgia Bulldog did not get much recognition for his incredible production for the first dozen years of his career, all of which were in Detroit. Perhaps it was because of the lack of success those Lions teams had, but Stafford should be among the furthest from blame for those losing seasons.
From 2009 to 2020, he completed 62.6% of his passes with 282 touchdowns and 144 interceptions. He averaged 3,759 yards per season and had eight seasons with more than 4,000 passing yards – including one (2011) – with more than 5,000.
Stafford's first year with a different team – 2021, with the Rams – he threw for 4,886 yards, 41 touchdowns and 17 interceptions and won the Super Bowl. All before earning his second Pro Bowl nod and down-ballot MVP votes in 2023.
In 2024, Stafford passed Eli Manning for 10th all-time in career passing yards.
1. QB Eli Manning (2004)
Manning isn't just the only first overall pick since 2000 to win multiple Super Bowls; he's also the only one with a Super Bowl MVP – and he has two of them.
The younger brother of fellow first-overall pick and five-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning has fewer regular season accolades than his sibling, but Eli does have four Pro Bowl nods (2008, 2011, 2012, 2015). He also has the unique distinction of being the only first-overall pick since 2000 to not play a single snap for the team that initially drafted him after the Chargers traded his rights to the Giants on draft night.
If the regular season were all that mattered, Manning's career would not stack up to the successes that other top picks have had. However, his two Super Bowl wins – over the dynastic, Tom Brady-led Patriots, no less – are enough to push him to the top of this list. Before Stafford's 2024 season, Manning was in the top 10 in career completions, passing yards and passing touchdowns as well.
Manning always found a way to hit a second gear in the postseason though. He still holds the NFL records for most pass attempts (163), completions (106) and passing yards (1,219) in a single postseason from his 2011 Super Bowl run.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NFL draft: Best No. 1 overall pick selections since 2000
Continue reading...
