The NFL Draft is a mere 1 day, 14 hours, 15 minutes and 36 seconds away as I write this blog — the Yahoo! Sports ticker tells me so.

So there is a little bit of time to welcome a visit from the Ghosts of NFL Drafts Past.

The draft is an inexact science. So many things go into making a good football player that even draft gurus like Bill Walsh and Bill Belichick missed on a few picks.

There are misses and then there are MISSES.

The Pittsburgh Steelers have had very few misfires lately, which is a big reason why those two shiny Lombardi trophies were added to the case in the last four years.

That wasn’t so in the 1980s, when the Black and Gold missed on so many first-round draft picks, Matt Millen would have gotten teary eyed.

Some of the highlights, well, lowlights:

-- Mark Malone, QB, 1980. Malone was the unfortunate dude who was the heir apparent to Terry Bradshaw. He never had a chance. A career 50.2 completion percentage and an uncanny resemblance to Tom Selleck didn’t help.

-- Darryl Sims, DE, 1985. Three years. Three sacks. Can you say poster child for busts?

He missed a game because his finger nails hurt. Little wonder, then, that he was never compared to Mean Joe Greene.

-- Aaron Jones, DE, 1988. Jones managed to stick around the league for eight seasons, but didn’t make nearly the impact an 18th overall pick should make with just 18 career sacks.

-- Tim Worley, RB and Tom Ricketts, OT, 1989. The Steelers got so good at the draft-a-bust-in-the-first-round gig, they did it twice in 1989.

Worley fumbled in his first three NFL carries during a 51-0 home loss to Cleveland, had only two 100-yard games and was out of the league in five years.

It was probably all Ricketts’ fault. The hometown lineman was a human turnstile.