Starting April 4th and continuing through April 29th, Canal Street Chronicles will be counting down the top 10 draft busts and then the top 10 draft successes in Saints history. Feel free to to use these posts as a springboard for discussion about how awful or how great each draft pick turned out.
For explanation on how our draft successes work, go here.
There may be some disagreement over this pick, so let me tell you why I placed Morten Andersen at 8th.
Andersen had a long, productive and HOF worthy career. The problem is that he only played half of his 25 year career with the Saints. Thus, he only helped the Saints for 12 years, before hurting the Saints indirectly by becoming an Atlanta Falcon. Though I didn't take points off for helping the Falcons, I did take points off for only spending half of his 25 year career with the Saints.
Morten Andersen was drafted in the 4th round with the 86th pick from Michigan State. Morten had a rough start when he twisted his ankle on his first kickoff as an NFL player, missing eight games in the process. After returning from his ankle injury, however, he became one of the more dominant kickers in the league. From 1982 to 1994, Andersen was named to six Pro Bowls ('85, '86, '87, '88, '90, '92), kicked 302 field goals and scored 1,318 points.
The Saints released Andersen after the 1994 season feeling that "his accuracy was on the decline." They were wrong. Andersen knew the best way to get back at the Saints, too: play for the Atlanta Falcons. "The Great Dane" would play six seasons for the Falcons and even kick a game winning overtime field goal to send them to their first and only Super Bowl...which they lost. While with the Falcons, Andersen was named to another Pro Bowl in 1995 and kicked three 50+ yard field goals in one game...against the Saints. Yeah, he was on the decline alright.
Morten finally retired on December 8th, 2008 after being out of football for an entire season. He was 48 years old.
The Saints would name him to the New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame on November 6, 2009, four days after the Saints beat the Falcons on MNF 35-27 during their Super Bowl winning season.
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