In the history of the NFL Draft, we all know that No. 1 overall picks can be a major hit or miss for a team that takes the risk of drafting them. A team that picks first overall is telling the rest of the NFL that they believe that the player they drafted is the best one in the class.
Now sometimes a team might take a player based on position of need, especially at quarterback which is the most important position on the field. We’ve seen it throughout history as teams will sometimes take a quarterback because they need one, even though they aren’t the best player coming into the draft.
Back in 1979, the Buffalo Bills had the first overall pick and elected to use it on Ohio State linebacker Tom Cousineau. Now with this pick, you would expect that Cousineau would have some success in Buffalo throughout the 80s which is where the Bills truly built up their team to make a run at the Super Bowl in the early 90s. However, that didn’t happen whatsoever for Cousineau in Buffalo. Instead, Cousineau never played a single down for the Bills.
Tom Cousineau never played for the Bills, despite being drafted No. 1 overall by them
After being drafted by the Bills, Cousineau decided to sign with the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League due to getting a better financial deal from them instead of the Bills. While Cousineau had success in the CFL, he only played in the league for a short amount of time before deciding to go to the NFL.
However, his return to the NFL in 1982 would not be with the Bills (who owned Cousineau’s draft rights), but it would be with the Cleveland Browns after the Bills traded him for a first round pick. That first round pick would be the 14th overall pick in 1983 that the Bills would use on Miami quarterback Jim Kelly.
While Kelly also did not play for the Bills right away after being drafted (as he decided to sign with the Houston Gamblers of the USFL), Kelly came back into the NFL and decided to debut with the Bills in 1986 and the rest was history. He is considered the best quarterback the Bills have had…for now.
So overall, the Bills wasted the first overall pick on Cousineau but somehow got lucky with the first round pick they got back for him to land the team’s best franchise quarterback in history. It was done in an extremely unconventional way, but the Bills got the best out of this whole situation. Cousineau only spent six seasons in the league playing for the Cleveland Browns and San Francisco 49ers and only earned Second-Team All-Pro honors once in his short career.