One of the most common labels that a player gets slapped with, often only a couple of years into his career, is that of the “bust.” However, the term is so widely used and so angrily tossed around that it means everything and nothing. The player who had an amazing rookie year and then faded into obscurity while hanging around in the league for two more seasons might be a bust. The ascending second-year player who tears his ACL and needs an extra year or rehab might be called a bust. The second-round player who filled a need on the team but did not play was well as the first-rounders a divisional rival fields might be labeled busts.

The median 6th-round player will start three games in his career. Is he a bust if he only starts two? If a wide receiver taken in the first round posts numbers that have him above the median for the second-round but toward the bottom of the first…what is he?

I suggest that “bust” is a label that is used to avoid thought. To make things simple (probably too simple). There are overdrafts, players who play well and stick in the league, but they just don’t measure up to the performance of their peers drafted in roughly the same position. There are casualties, players injured in this brutal sport who make us think about how bizarre this form of entertainment is. There are organizational failures, too, like quarterbacks drafted with a premium pick who are then allowed to be sacked two or three times a game with very few experienced targets and a porous defense–players like that are less “busts” than they are symptoms of poor leadership.