The NFL suspended Detroit Lions wide receiver Charles Rogers this week, marking yet another setback in the career of a player who is taking his place as one of the NFL draft’s biggest busts. Rogers is a piece in one of the NFL’s most inexplicable puzzles: How is it possible that the Lions have taken a quarterback and three receivers – Joey Harrington, Rogers, Roy Williams, and Mike Williams, respectively – in the Top 10 of the last four drafts, and have one of the league’s worst passing games to show for it?

Of the four picks, Rogers is the biggest disappointment. When Detroit selected him out of Michigan State with the second pick in 2003, he was already on the league’s substance abuse radar because he turned in a diluted urine sample at the scouting combine. But the Lions felt so strongly that he would make an immediate impact that they gave him a better contract than the Cincinnati Bengals gave the first pick that year, quarterback Carson Palmer.

The Lions have played 35 games since drafting Rogers. Two broken collarbones have already cost him 26; now he’ll miss four more after his second failed drug test. He has a career total of 27 catches for 320 yards and three touchdowns.

Injuries have no doubt hindered Rogers. But even when he’s healthy, he’s been known to take plays off, drops balls, and avoid contact over the middle. He spent his college career outrunning defensive backs on deep routes. But since entering the NFL, he’s found that he does n’t have the route-running ability to beat defensive backs who can match him stride for stride.

Detroit took Roy Williams out of Texas with the seventh pick last year, and he has given the Lions much more production than Rogers has, but he makes plenty of mistakes, too. Fans who only see the Lions on SportsCenter know about his highlight-reel catches, but what SportsCenter doesn’t show is that Williams has more than his share of drops. Last year he caught only 46% of the passes thrown to him. This year he’s at 36%. The league average for wide receivers is 56%.

Mike Williams, whom the Lions chose out of USC with the 10th pick this year, has caught only four passes for 25 yards, and he seems to labor under the assumption that because he was the no. 1 option throughout his college career, he’ll be the Lions’ top option. When he’s not the first option, he gives up on routes, which gives Harrington little chance of finding him on plays when the first choice is covered.

As badly as the Lions receivers have played, Harrington has received the brunt of the criticism from fans and the media for the Lions’ passing woes. Taken out of Oregon with the third pick in 2002, Harrington’s biggest problem isn’t his arm. It’s his patience. When a play doesn’t develop exactly the way it’s drawn up, he throws the ball away. That’s the worst possible quality for a quarterback to have when his receivers were drafted for their athleticism and ability to make spectacular plays.

But there’s plenty of blame to go around. Harrington, Rogers, and the Williamses have already collected more than $50 million from the Lions. And yet the Lions have the league’s worst record over the last five years.

The lesson many scouts will take from the Lions’ difficulties is that physical gifts are overrated. In terms of pure size and speed, there might not be a collection of receivers in NFL history who can match the Lions’ trio. But size and speed aren’t everything. Randy Moss is one of the league’s best receivers thanks to those attributes, but most of the NFL’s top pass catchers are in the mold of Indianapolis’s Marvin Harrison, St. Louis’s Tory Holt, and Pittsburgh’s Hines Ward, all of whom are under six feet tall with sure hands and a knack for precise routes – and all of whom have more catches than Moss over the past five seasons.

Mr. Smith writes for FootballOutsiders.com.