The NFL draft, the last quasi-meaningful football event before the labor war truly takes over, is still over two months away, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start prognosticating what my Lions are going to do!
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Feb 182011
Apr 262009
I’ve already made my feelings known about the Matthew Stafford selection, but the Lions still had two other picks in Day One. With the twentieth pick the team selected TE Brandon Pettigrew. Now on the surface this was a poor selection given all the deficiencies at defense. However, the Lions haven’t had a really good tight end since…Charlie Sanders. Pettigrew isn’t flashy like a Jeremy Shockey, but he’s a complete player who should be starter. So I liked the pick. Now with the thirty-third pick the Lions drafted S Louis Delmas. This pick I had problems with, simply because the top two middle linebackers were still on the board. Granted a lot of people had Delmas as the top safety available, but the Lions have had a gaping hole in the middle of the defense for a very long time. What better way to restart a desultory defense then by drafting a new leader for it?
What am I looking for in Day 2 is the team to select a MLB, o-line depth, and d-line depth. If they can add those pieces this will be a very successful draft.
Apr 252009
The Lions signed Stafford. I was more or less resigned to this quite some time ago. I can’t really say the decision excites me, but then again, I was fired up when the Lions drafted Joe Harrington. I do agree with the idea that you have to lock down your quarterback in order to succeed in the NFL, and history does kind of say that the best way to do that is to draft one high — the last four teams to win the Super Bowl did so with a quarterback drafted in the top 15 after all. Plus I’ve been swayed by those talking heads who said that Aaron Curry would not provide proper value for the pick. Hopefully Culpepper will be adequate this year so Stafford can take his time getting acclimated, and who knows, maybe the kid really be the second coming of Bobby Layne.
What I’m more interested in is what the team does with the four other picks it has in the first round. Mayhew and Schwartz absolutely have to address the deficiencies at mike linebacker and DL, and more depth at OL would be fine too.
Apr 212009
Page 2: Mock Draft For the Ages
Neat little feature ESPN.com’s Page 2 ran where they took every college player in history and treated them like a single draft class. What made this oft-repeated exercise interesting was they only evaluated the players based on their collegiate performance. In other words, they used only the information available to the teams at the time of the draft. This makes for more than just a run down of Hall of Fame players. Granted most of the “busts” selected are really indictments of teams ability in the draft — I’m honestly surprised Mike Mamula wasn’t “drafted” by someone. I also really thought having the Lions draft Charles Rogers with the twentieth overall selection was an extremely low blow. Other than that it’s an entertaining exercise, especially now that every possible thing could be said about the 2009 NFL draft.