I’ve seen the ESPN guys say this morning that their “info” of Bailey at 2 is just from other teams assuming that’s what they’re going to do, and that the Jets have been very tight lipped about what they’re really doing.
I actually loved McCoy’s tape. That 2024 season was some of the best CB tape I’ve ever evaluated, on part with Surtain or Stingley’s best. And when I though he only missed the season with a torn ACL, I was 100% fine taking him at 17 (in fact I didn’t think he’d make it).
If he’s really got this degenerative thing going on though, well that changes the calculus.
I think this is 80+% of all draft rumors. I think it’s 100% of the basis behind our Proctor rumor. All of a sudden the most tight-lipped organization in the league is gabbing about what they’re gonna do? Nah, I don’t buy it for a second. We’re hoping to convince some team to jump us for Proctor is what I figure.
Charlie Campbell being so convinced that we want Proctor makes me worried, because he was spot on about us going after Gibbs and Jack Campbell back in 2023.
He’s living off that rep, I suspect whoever it was that supplied him with that info is long gone. According to a couple of insiders on here, we regularly run stings on our own staff to see who will leak things. They’ll intentionally let known they like someone in the room who they don’t really like to see if it gets released. We are adamant about being secretive. To my knowledge he is the only one who has ever figured out what we wanted to do, and he only did it once, that year. Since then he’s been as gash as the rest of them.
I also just find it impossible to fathom that we’re gonna suddenly sacrifice our grit qualifications for a guy like that. The only thing about him that screams Lions is “big guy smash” + Alabama, and that’s usually where everyone stops digging. But go even a centimeter further and it all starts to fall apart.
Now Proctor and Freeling are punished a little for being younger and thus not captains, but apparently that would raise their scores ~12% or so, which still puts Proctor in last place pretty comfortably.
Yeah, if there’s a guy that exemplifies what Brad and Dan love in a player, Miller is that guy sort of like the Jack Campbell of tackles. He seems more of a plug and play guy as opposed to an upside guy like Feeling or Proctor so I think he’d be a better fit for where the Lions are in their development but Brad does like swinging for the fences at times so who knows. The Lions have been unpredictable at the draft in Holmes tenure. I wouldn’t be overly shocked if he took a guy like Jacob Rodriguez at 17 tbh and threw/pissed everybody off.
Even when he does this, it’s for a guy with the intangibles we look for. The insane blocking and effort Jamo showed. Same with TeSlaa and Bromart. Guys who love football and play hard. That’s why to me, Freeling checks the box and Proctor doesn’t.
For me that guy would be Ponds. And I saw a mock today where he went 20th to the Cowboys, so others are starting to come around to that way of thinking.
The one negative on Miller. He has chicken legs. Otherwise he would be gone before 17. He was never a thick guy and has worked his tail off (no pun intended) to add strength and get his weight above that magic 300 number. His natural physique is more of an NBA player and not what you see as ideal for an OT in the NFL For some evaluators the chicken legs are as taboo as short arms.
