For the record, not for Willis at 2. But to address the question, YES you sit him. Mahomes and Lance were high picks and their teams allowed the vets to play. Same with Fields until injury hit. Do you draw up plays for a guy as dynamic as Willis starting in September 2022. Heck yes you do. But the QB1 is Goff no matter where you take Willis. It buys time to improve the team around him and to teach him all the nuances he needs to improve on. I don’t think fan pressure is going to hit a 2nd year staff.
I do worry if we play the wait on QB game and Goff proves to not be the guy and we are going into year 4 going… guys be patient we have a rookie QB and don’t want to throw him to the wolves. Check back on us in year 6 won’t be what the natives will want to hear. This is why I’m interested in a trade down/trade up for Willis this year. We’ll see by year 4 if we were just enamored by apparent competency or looking for our next shiny new ball staff. If they roll with Goff and were wrong, do you give them a couple extra years to see if they can hit on a drafted QB? Likely having to sell the future to go get him? Careful what you wish for. Hearing well the QB prospects were going to be stronger in the 2024 draft won’t feed the beast…
I like Willis just not at 2, and would be ok with him say anywhere past pic 10. Get your blue chip with #2 then if they really like him get him. I think if there not sticking with Goff get him so he can sit a year or 2. Goff just got his confidence back drafting this kid would probably set him back also. There is alot to think about here.
Mahomes and Lance went to Super Bowl contenders who had the luxury of packaging picks, moving up, and not needing that investment to pay off right away.
With Mahomes specifically, he was put into the exact perfect scenario to thrive. The flashes of “bad Mahomes” that we’ve seen, including last year’s Super Bowl, would be a lot bigger component of his game if not for said perfect scenario.
Point being, the Lions have none of those things. They’re not a perfect scenario for a young QB, and they don’t have the luxury of spending high picks without a fast return on them.
If that is a concern, it simply reinforces that we need to get his replacement into the pipeline. Protecting the ego of our 30M vet QB is not something we should have to worry about. If we are NOT moving on, then we should focus on getting a vet who is better than what we had last year for our backups. Both from a talent standpoint if we need them, but more from a helping Goff dissect defenses perspective.
But do you risk splitting the locker room by putting him in, getting a good play, then Goff makes a mistake and not making him the permanent replacement?
This is Detroit, the backup is always THE guy.
Even if you don’t take him at two, but trade back up to get him, there’s inherent pressure to utilize your asset. Only going to be magnified o those times Goff makes a mistake or has a bad game.
If taken at 2OA, you don’t draft competition for your QB there, you drafted his replacement.
The 49ers gave up a ton to move off JG. He just took the to the NFC Championship game. If you go by the sentiment during the game, Shanahan’s playcalling hurt them, not JGs play.
You’ll get a ton of folks now pointing to the game ending pick. Time to jettison JG. Lance’s time.
Shouldn’t change the entire rest of the game where the fault laid with the coach, not QB. But it will.
Not going to worry about year 4 or 6 because we haven’t started year 2 yet. If they get to year 4 and the only thing holding them back is a QB, push the chips into the middle and go get one, ala the Rams. Goff’s contract will have just ended anyway or in last year. He’s signed for 3 more years I think. Even waiting one more year, he’s still under contract to sit anyone if needed.
Non-Malik Willis reasons I don’t want to draft Malik Willis:
Unlike the Steelers, Commies, Panthers, etc…, we have a QB. I don’t think he’s the long-term answer, but he’s good enough for right now. Also, I could be wrong and he might be the long-term answer and that would be great.
I don’t want to draft a QB we don’t start. I know, I know, Lance, Mahomes, etc… Well those guys are outliers nowadays (and also we don’t even know if Lance is good yet). If you could tell me they’ll hit the ground running in their 2nd years as if they’d played their rookie seasons I’d be all for it, but I have a hunch that’s another outlier. The Chiefs and Niners are great teams with great offensive minds coaching them.
Opportunity cost. I don’t want drafting Willis or any of the other QBs to stop us from taking a better prospect next year. How many QBs have been passed on because a team is waiting on a highly-drafted guy to pan out? The Giants passed on Herbert because of Daniel Jones. The Jags passed on Watson, Mahomes and Lamar Jackson because of Blake Bortles. Tennessee passed on Watson and Mahomes because of Mariota. What a waste that would be.
Malik Willis reasons I don’t want to draft Malik Willis:
The things I believe are important to succeeding at QB in the NFL: timing, accuracy, poise, decision-making, and touch are his weakest areas. Some are worse than others but in general all will need to be improved, some of them drastically.
Continuing from #1, this is unlikely. I know we have this glaring example of it happening recently in Josh Allen, but he is a major, major outlier. And here’s the thing about Allen: he received essentially no high-level coaching before he reached the NFL. He played at a tiny high school, didn’t do the all-star circuit, played at Juco and then Wyoming. In his Wyoming tape his over-striding was comically obvious. Shoring that up has done wonders for his accuracy and touch. Willis played at the largest high school in Georgia, a football powerhouse, Auburn, then under Hugh Freeze. His mechanics are fine, there are no easy tweaks to be made. Now obviously it’s not impossible that he makes the necessary improvements, it’s just that I wouldn’t bet on it with high draft capital.
I think Willis is an example of confirmation bias in action. I say this because I did it, last offseason (Next Years QB Draft Class). I saw all that unteachable stuff and I went googly-eyed. But since I did it last offseason I had the chance to watch him game-by-game this year and at first it was fine but as the season wore on I had to admit to myself he wasn’t the prospect I thought he was. And I watched virtually every one of his games. Can he change/improve? Maybe. But I was hoping he wouldn’t have to.
Yeah dude, like it’s just that easy to go get a Matthew Stafford. More like pushing all your chips for DeShawn Watson, hoping he’ll want to play here (we’re not California) and hoping he keeps his hands off the local talent. Or giving up multiple picks for a reclamation project like Sam Darnold. You cannot look at what the Rams did to get Stafford as something you can just do. Certainly not if you are saying hey come to Detroit… we’re at 9 wins and you are the missing piece!!
Here is the flip side with JG/Lance. They were able to make it to the final 4 teams even though they missed out on what they gave up to get Lance. What they got is a year to groom a raw QB prospect. That part is done. Now will they move JG this season and get the pain that will certainly come with Lance over with? Quite possibly so. But they have a pretty well built team AND their future QB under contract for another 4 seasons and they don’t have to scramble to try to get from the bottom of the first round, to the top. They can just take the best player there and continue to refine the team. If the worst case scenario is that you have to good QB options, well, not a bad problem to have. You just have to pick one then go collect your bean harvest.
Not just that, they could let JG go, throw in Lance and he flops, now you lost a QB, wasted picks on Lance, the players you could have had and have to yet again draft a replacement because your project flamed out.
I want to be a sure as possible. A 1st on a project is not the way to go IMO. Burrow I would have traded up for, not for Willis
I’ve never said it CAN’T be done. What I’ve said, is you’d BETTER be right with the team you assemble while you are waiting on the golden QB class to go get a real QB prospect. Because it DOES cost those picks. I say it’s BETTER to go for a QB when you are already at the top of the board as you can get your top QB prospect, or even trade down to get him, which allows you to mitigate the pick by getting another non-QB out of the deal. If you blow your QB pick, you blow ONE pick. Not your top swings for a couple years, while taking a similar chance that your pick ends up being Sam Darnold and not Patrick Mahomes.
Also- -liked the rest of your take on this dude as well. I completely agree with where he is at.
…what makes him most intriguing to me is my projection of his ability to learn. It’s a type of intelligence that is hard to measure.
This is my best case scenario. So much trade value in either of them. Goff is young enough to keep for a long time…annnnd…then your biggest challenge would be showcasing Malik, if you wanted to trade him…so you could show the world his development and boost his trade value.
Best comparison we have in the league today, IMO. Very similar players (Goff and JimmyG), in terms of what they can/can’t do. I actually think Goff is a more trustworthy passer, but a far less trustworthy presence in other ways. Basically…Pressure jimmy, he throws the pick…Pressure Goff, he’s gonna jump on the ground and fumble it.
Drafting Willis or any other QB in this draft given the known talent deficit we have is ore or less telling Goff:
“Jared, yeah we had some issues with the OL due to injuries and yeah, you may have had one of the bottom 5 lineups in terms of weapons, but we’re going to move on from you. And while we are doing that, we are also going to draft weapons so the QB we draft has a better chance of succeeding than you did.”
Get Goff a couple more guys to throw to, let Decker, Sewell and Ragnow work together and see what happens next season. If it still doesn’t work, there are really good QBs coming out next year.
Ok, I read it, so now I feel MUCH more comfortable sticking with exactly what I said before. When you DO read beyond the headlines… well
Headline: MULTIPLE NFL evaluators!!!
Article: “A couple of veteran NFL evaluators told me…”
So… yeah… obviously consensus level stuff here.
Lets go ahead an put the crow bet up. I’ll bet that at least 2 QB’s will be selected in the 1st round. I really believe it will be 4, but if “your friends” are right, it should be zero.
It’s a small sample size and sure, the gamesmanship has begun, but most of the people down there agree that while Willis has the most intriguing skills, none of them are worth 1st rounders. That’s where I stand as well. Now one or some will go in the first round, they always do, but the evaluations are not flattering in general.
It’s all good. As I’ve said, my opinion of Willis is that he is a 2nd round talent that will go between 10-20 because of his raw tools which are elite, great character/ leadership qualities and lack of top end QB talent in this draft. If we confine the debate to QB grades, I don’t disagree. But that means exactly jack squat if you are the Lions and view Malik Willis as a potential replacement starter for Goff in a year or two. If you feel that way, waiting do get him based on his grade will be a fools errand because he’ll be long gone. IMHO of course.
