Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Ryan Leaf glad he didn’t cost Bobby Beathard the Hall of Fame

Ryan Leaf

18 Apr 1998: Second overall pick Ryan Leaf shows off his jersey after being selected by the San Diego Chargers in the first round of the 1998 NFL Draft at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, New York. Mandatory Credit: Ezra C. Shaw /Allsport

Getty Images

Longtime General Manager Bobby Beathard was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this month, and the worst draft pick Beathard ever made is glad to hear it.

Ryan Leaf, the all-time draft bust whom Beathard traded up to select with the second overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft, wrote on Twitter that he’s glad Beathard made it.

“Congratulations Mr Beathard, you gave me my dream and in return I almost cost you the HOF. So glad it didn’t, well deserved,” Leaf wrote.

Beathard is going to the Hall of Fame because he helped build three Super Bowl-winning teams in Washington then helped San Diego reach its only Super Bowl. But the decision to trade up for Leaf cast a pall over the end of Beathard’s tenure with the Chargers.

Fortunately for Beathard, the Hall of Fame voters looked past that mistake and rewarded Beathard on his full body of work.