Rams Top 10 Draft Busts, since the move: #10 - Joe Klopfenstein, TE

The St. Louis Rams have had more than fair share of draft busts. In fact, I think you could almost get away with having the top twenty draft busts given just how spotty things got while the old regime rotted from the inside out. To keep this project manageable, I'm limiting it to drafts starting in 1995, the year of the move. 

Another caveat you'll notice, most of the guys, barring something that really made them infamous, were players picked in the early rounds of the draft. Those are the guys that should be starters a team can lean on for at least a few years. When they don't work out, teams pay the price. 

In the tenth spot, tight end Joe Klopfenstein, the Rams second round pick, #46, in the 2006 NFL Draft. Klop was the third TE drafted that year, the first of the second round. Some thought the Colorado product would be the next Jeremy Shockey, a receiving threat and a solid blocker who many thought would start as a rookie. 

Whoops. 

Klop just never caught on, no pun intended. He struggled to pick up the playbook, not to mention compete against NFL competition. Beware the workout. Klop owned excellent numbers in all the workout drills, from the forty (low-4.5s) to the bench press. Drafts of the Linehan era were marked by guys who had good workouts. 

What happened with Klop is up for debate, but the bottom line is that he never lived up to his status and potential. 

More than once, the Rams under Linehan picked a player who wasn't the best at his position, or at least didn't turn out to be as good as players picked after him. Tony Scheffler and Anthony Fasano were both drafted after Klopfenstein in the second round. They also missed out on players like Greg Jennings and Devin Hester, both of whom would have been needed in the Rams offense during that time. Maurice Jones-Drew was also on the board at the board at that time. 

Klop got plenty of chances with the Rams. When the Rams picked up Daniel Fells in the middle of the 2008 season for a bag of peanuts, he immediately showed more promise than Klop had since 2006. It marked the end. Ultimately, he was released when Spagnuolo took over in 2009. 

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