I think he’s always been trigger happy. He did a little better in this draft, but we did trade David Montgomery for the priveledge of overdrafting Derrick Moore so there’s that. A BPA drafter would have said oh well if Baltimore took Moore and he’d have been fine taking Young and having two 4th round picks. But he’s never been a true BPA guy, so no surprises here. He’s doing what he’s always done. Fall in love and go get them before anyone else will think they are worth the pick. No BroMarts or Manu’s in this one so, baby steps. I don’t think this was a bad draft, but I would have waited on Moore. Probably would have traded up for Bain in the first as his value there was the story of the first round IMO. I would have been fine pulling a mini-Ditka and coming out with Bain and Miller only. Probably would have had to dip into next year and didn’t really want to do that, but I would have for Bain/Miller.
I don’t think Zion Young has the upside of Derrick Moore. But maybe Young has the higher floor.
I personally like the idea of getting the guy you want at the expense of a day 3 pick. But I could be bias because Zion Young was literally the guy i absolutely didn’t want.
I agree… and… I will also add that Zion Young may not have even been on the Lions’ board due to character issues.
When has this front office drafted a guy with 2 arrests in the past few years?
And one of them was a DWI that occured at 1:40am on 12/13/25, just 2 weeks before Missouri’s bowl game.
I think there is a VERY good chance that the Lions wouldn’t have drafted Young at #50. Moore may have been the last player in their “bucket” for the 2nd round, if we are assuming that DE was the priority target over any other position. Jacas was still on the board, but it seems the Lions may not have been all that high on him.
Depends on how he ranked Moore versus Young. For some front offices, Young may have been higher than Moore, and for other front offices, Moore was higher than Young.
If the GM really thinks that Moore is a step above Young, it’s not “fine” settling for the lesser player and a mediocre 4th-round talent. Indeed, a true BPA drafter should always go up for their guy (based on their own analysis of the players and their intel on how other front offices view the field) if they think they’ll miss out by waiting.
Under no circumstances should they base their decisions on the “big boards” (consensus or otherwise) produced by the media. That way leads to Matt Millen.
Don’t be a Millen.
There’s ample reason to believe that the Ravens were likely to snag Moore at 45. Again, don’t fall in love with the media consensus big boards. Don’t be a Millen.
Madness, pure madness. It would have taken a 2027 1st (and then some) to double-dip in the first round this year, and again, there’s good reason to believe that #32 in 2027 will be better than either Bain or Miller.
Given the reports coming out of Baltimore, we could have moved up to 14 and gotten Bain. We didn’t. Ergo, we valued Miller more than Bain. Fair enough.
That’s cool and they were both picked in the same area so doubt there was a massive difference in overall talent. I don’t blame BH for going to get his guy. It is what it is though and it isn’t BPA drafting. It’s targeting his guys and getting them even if you are conceding some value. Again, I have no problem with this, just own it and don’t try to sell me it’s a version of BPA…
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I don’t agree that trading up somehow negates the BPA approach.
If they has Moore as their BPA… even if it was due to the “need” at DE being a “tiebreaker”… giving up a day 3 pick to get a player identified as the BPA in that bucket doesn’t change the philosophy.
I think the Kiper and other draft guru big boards have conditioned fans to think that all teams make a list of players from 1-100 and steictly pick the highest number on the list like they are shopping at Costco.
However, it doesn’t sound like that is what actually happens for many NFL teams. They talk about “buckets” of players with similar grades, or the fact that they may only have 14 players graded as “1st round” value.
Agree to disagree. If you don’t have pick 44 then the Best Player at 44 is NOT available to you. So you sit back and wait till pick 50 and take the highest ranked player left on your board. If you are moving all over to target guys, that is NOT the BPA approach that all GM’s lie and say they do. A BPA approach specifically prevents one from shedding picks. Shedding picks to target certain players is anything BUT BPA. Not saying it’s not a good thing to do. But it is not letting the board come to you. You are going to get your guy.
Agreed.
For example, when Brad recently talked about the challenge of extending the 2023 class, he said something to the effect of, “It’s a good problem to have – we got 4 players with 1st-round grades.” He’s also talked about “buckets” and “tiebreakers.”
If you’ve got 14 players with 1st round grades, for example, you’ve got a bucket of “equal” players in terms of skill, character, athleticism, and so forth. They are, in effect, interchangeable from a value perspective. So a “tiebreaker” such as “positional value” or “need” may come into play to assist in determining how to rank the bucket, given where the team is at for this point in time.
It’s still BPA – but what makes a player “best” in this model is a combination of “grade value,” “capital value” (you don’t want to spend a 1st round pick on a player you’ve identified as a “2nd round grade” if at all possible), and proximate value” – some combination of team need and positional value.
In other words, it is incorrect to model your draft board without context.
It’s incorrect to say you’re drafting “BPA” and then letting the best player available go to another team. Just absolutely incorrect.
If you’re not moving up to get your guy, you’re not drafting BPA. Because, obviously, if you have the opportunity to move up to get your guy, he is literally “available.” A B+ talent is worth more than a C talent and a D+ talent.
Other than Bill Polian… very few GMs would agree.
If a team has 1 “target” that they have graded above the rest of the players on their board, but don’t trade up 6 spots and miss out on that player, they are then potentially forced into picking a player they have graded significantly lower. How is THAT supposed to be the BEST player available… when the player they wanted was AVAILABLE for nothing more than a day 3 pick?
No it isn’t. Because you could be WRONG in your assessment as GM’s do at a 40% plus tilt. Then you get a freaking BroMart or Manu. BH would have told you that those guys were so high on their board, that they HAD to go get them. So yeah… sure that’s BPA??! He was wrong on BroMart and because he did not let the board come to him, he reached for traits and it cost us three freaking picks on a third round pick that did zippo for us. No. BPA prevents a GM from doing these things. You keep your swings and take the Best Player on your board when the pick that you have comes up. If you want to target talent and keep shedding picks to go get them, then dilly dilly. But it is NOT a BPA approach, it just isn’t.
To put it in a Biblical context:
“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for all joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls – who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”
- Mathew 13:44-46
Equally, you could be wrong in your assessment of players even if you never trade up. Except now, you’ll be getting even more mediocre players. Expending more capital to move up means you’re devoting fewer roster spots to rookies, and hence fewer roster spots to the inevitable flame-outs. One might prefer to reserve those roster spots for cheap veterans with something to prove. Again, context absolutely matters.
The problem with Bromart and Hooker was that the players didn’t pan out, not the capital expended to get them. Brad’s failure was in determining whether the Lions could coach them up, of perhaps over-valuing potential (the ceiling) versus recorded production (the floor).
Likewise, the success of Jamo and Branch wasn’t the capital expended to get them, but that we correctly identified them as superior talents.
Key phrase…. PLAYER THEY WANTED. Think about that for a second.
You always want want you consider the superior player, especially when there are (to your valuations) non-contiguous drops in quality.
If you have 2 players with a B+ grade left on the board, and the next highest player after that is a C, and there’s still 6 teams selecting before you do, it’s downright stupid to accept the C player just because you didn’t want to move up.
UNLESS the grade you have on the guy is wrong. Meanwhile one of the two other guys you could have had if you had the picks, ends up being Amon-Ra St. Brown. But he doesn’t play for you, he plays for another team because you HAD to have BroMart. Theorhetically of course. BPA makes GM’s resist the temptation to reach. So you end up with more swings. Again, I’m not saying targeting players based on grades/team need is not the way to do it. I do think it is because team FIT is very very important when building a roster. Just don’t tell me it’s the way the board fell. You MADE the board change, you didn’t let it come to you and keeping a larger amount of swings in a 60/40 proposition IF you are a very very good GM (which I think we have in BH), increases your chances of hitting.
I don’t understand why these conversation always end up being one or the other. Either you’re all on one side and all on the other, nuance is not allowed!
It’s not straight, full-on BPA. Otherwise kickers would go early. Otherwise teams with QBs would take QBs again. Teams with a badass corps or RBs would take RBs again. Teams don’t do that. DUH.
But it’s not pure needs-based either. Otherwise you could rank every teams needs 1-10, then go down the board and check them off one-by-one. That’s what a lot of people do on the sims. BUT that’s clearly not what happens either.
DT was not our biggest need last year when he took Tyleik. Nobody thought we’d take Gibbs after signing Monty, EVERYONE wanted a CB that year. Even the year we took Terrion, he was a need, but by the time the 2nd round rolled around we’d added Davis and Terrion, adding yet another CB clearly wasn’t our biggest need. His first year everyone was crying out for a WR and he waited until day 3 to grab one.
Were they needs on some level? Absolutely. But there’s a reason no one in the pick 'em contests went those directions in here.
Then you look at the team Brad came from. I think the entire world knows QB wasn’t LA’s biggest need, and probably not in their top 10.
The nuanced truth is teams will take players at ANY position where they believe there’s SOME level of need, even if that need isn’t immediate. And that level vacillates depending on the talent of the player. Like I said, if Jeremiah Smith had been available at 17, suddenly WR becomes a lot more interesting.
It’s both and neither. There, that’s the answer.
I think you are arguing many different things here, and not simply BPA vs. need.
Trading up for someone doesn’t mean it wasn’t a BPA approach. If you have one guy left in a tier and trade up for him, well then you were trading up for the best player available. It doesn’t mean simply letting the board fall to you and taking the best guy there (though it can often work out that way).
As for the grade on the guy, well that’s a totally different conversation. That’s all about evaluation, which is what I suspect is really at the heart of all of these disagreements anyway. And this is really easy to see with one example: everyone complains about Brad trading up for Bromart, Manu, and now Moore, but NOBODY complains about him trading up for Branch. Very few complain about the trade up for Jamo? Why is that?
Not complaining about a guy they fell in love with, traded resources to go get and they kick arse has exactly ZERO to do with draft philosophy re BPA which is what this debate is about. There is ALWAYS a BPA where you are picking. ALWAYS. It’s when you start trading up that you create additional risk. When it works, great. When it doesn’t work it costs you swings. Simple as that. One could trade every pick they have every single year to obtain a top 5 pick. That player would undoubtably be a much better player by evaluation than the first round pick you had at 18 or whatever. It’s that misses happen, and if the player ends up Ricky Williams, it tanks your franchise for years. This is obviously an extreme example. Is it a BPA drafting philosophy because you get one of the BPsA in the entire draft every year??
Changing the board by moving up is how you become a 60/40 GM and not a 40/60 GM. It keeps you from settling for lesser talents. Of course, it depends on your ability to evaluate players, as well as your ability to evaluate your competition. But again, picking a Bromart will always happen if your grading process is flawed, you’ll just pick him later; in the meantime, you also miss out on Branch.
Missing out on Branch would have been a greater tragedy than putting up with Bromart (or someone you thought was worse than Bromart, heaven forbid) for two years. If no one else thought that Bromart was any good, he still would have been our next pick after Hooker, because Brad and Dan obviously thought he was good.
Moving up doesn’t prevent the swing-and-a-miss. Moving up has no bearing on your ability to evaluate players. Getting a few more swings after the “dropoff” in talent doesn’t really improve your ability to get really good players. You shouldn’t depend on lottery tickets.
The GM who doesn’t trade up is only well served with that strategy if he is bad or incapable at evaluating the competition. It actually is subject to more “luck” as you have to depend on other teams not taking the better players before your pick, and luck is a fickle bitch.