I’ve been very vocal about my desire to draft Simmons. I still think he was the better player, but…
In most of the mock drafts I played around with, Simmons was my first round but in the 2nd I went CB. My favorite in the mocks was AJ Terrell, who ended up going 16 overall. 4 more CB’s went after Okudah in the 1st. That means even if we would have gone CB in the 2nd, it would be been the 6th best CB.
If we would have still taken Swift (a player I really like), 3 more CB’s went in the 2nd. We would have gotten pretty deep in the CB ranks before taking one.
We got a starting CB, a starting RB and 3rd down pass rusher. We could have done worse.
I’ll argue we got at worse a starting CB, a starting RB, and a 3rd down rusher.
At very best we got the best chance of getting a true lockdown CB that shuts down half the field and will help against the run, the number one running back on most teams boards that comes in and gives us a stable of backs the likes we’ve never had before, and maybe the best pass rusher in the draft not named Chase Young. Not too shabby.
Not to mention, offensive guard went from a huge hole to nice depth. Well played Quinn.
I’m not complaining but I would rather have had Derrick Brown and Yetur Gross-Matos than Swift and Okudah. Because I like nasty and these two are nasty.
This was one of the arguments I was making. It was Okudah, then a drop to Henderson and to get him you’d have had to overdraft him too. He went higher than the mocks were saying he’d go. So how many people here would have been good with Henderson at 8? A few, sure. I really liked Chaisson, so would I trade for what the Jags did in the first round? Yes, but apparently that wasn’t an option. Then it was overdraft city for the rest of the CB’s. This would have penciled us in for a reach for need in the 2nd round, with a CB not close to as good as Okudah. We play press man and he was the alpha male press man CB in this class. Henderson is not that and he’s not a strong tackler like Okudah is. That is our culture here.
So even if we did get Henderson, he wasn’t a better fit here than Okudah. It was a very Lionsy situation we were in. We knew Young was going to go, total Lions luck. Miami and LA stand pat. Lions luck. I just don’t buy that we could have “sold” that we wanted to move on from Stafford. The league knows what he is and you don’t reset from that in a hot seat year. What we did is stay at or near the top of the talent pools for CB, RB, EDGE and OG and we needed starters at all 4 of those spots. RB is debatable, but I don’t think I’d get too many takers wanting to bet 16 plus playoff game(s) for KeJo. If both are healthy, both will see a lot of snaps. I think Swift is the more talented runner and will eventually be considered our 1A and it will happen this season.
OG may fall a little deeper. I’d bet most had Stenberg above Jackson, but we got both and they were in that 3rd-4th conversation. I think if you come out of the draft with 4 guys you think will start or be in a heavy snap rotation, I think you did pretty darned good. I think when you throw in the late DTs that might see some time, the RB that is probably your kick returner and a WR that will catch some TD’s this year, I’m happy with it.
I’m no defender of Quinn but the idea that he failed in someway because he couldn’t convince the rest of the league we might actually draft Tua is absurd.
I’ve seen that take on twitter from Detroit local media and drives me crazy