Kansas City Chiefs: Every First Round Draft Pick Since 2000
EVERY CHIEFS FIRST ROUND PICK – 2011 NFL DRAFT: JONATHAN BALDWIN
After scoring big with the selection of Eric Berry, the Chiefs swung and missed HARD on their first-round pick in 2011. Jonathan Baldwin would later go down as one of the biggest Chiefs busts ever and it didn’t take long at all for fans to figure that out.
After a successful 2010 season in which the Chiefs went 10-6 and won the AFC West for the first time in seven years, Kansas City had a pick far deeper in the first round than what fans were used to. After time expired on the Ravens at pick 26, the Chiefs got to jump ahead of them and took… Jonathan Baldwin? Uhhh…What?
I remember exactly what I was doing during this draft. I was a sophomore in college and some friends and I drove to Blue Springs to watch the draft at Buffalo Wild Wings. When the announcement came, my friends and I were all a bit puzzled at the selection.
The red flags began pretty early on with Baldwin, as during the preseason, he got into a fight with Thomas Jones and broke his hand. That’s right… 80-year-old Thomas Jones was able to beat up 22-year-old Jon Baldwin. Not exactly a great way to introduce yourself to the NFL.
Baldwin would miss the first five weeks of the season as a result of that fight and didn’t do much for the Chiefs in that 2011 season. He’d haul in just 21 receptions for 254 yards and one touchdown as a rookie. Baldwin didn’t fare much better in his second year, grabbing just 20 receptions for 325 yards and one touchdown.
For those who are good at math, that totaled 41 receptions for 579 yards and two touchdowns in two seasons. Baldwin was so bad that the Chiefs gave up on him after only two years and traded him to the 49ers for their Jon Baldwin (A.J. Jenkins). The two teams thought maybe a change of scenery would benefit both players, but nope. They still stunk with new teams.
Baldwin would play in San Francisco for just one season and was released before the 2014 season began. He’d spend limited time on the Lions practice squad, but never did see any NFL action again. Baldwin was only 25 years old when his professional football career ended.
When discussing the biggest busts in Chiefs history, Jonathan Baldwin has to be in the top five all-time. So much talent went to waste and it’s a damn shame because the kid made some pretty outstanding catches (see YouTube video above).