The worst 5 picks since Millen’s times:
I give Millen a pass on selecting J Harrington. Harrington was a Heisman finalist! C. Rodgers - bad pick, but he was a super stud too! But wasn’t his drug usage fairly common knowledge?
you’re actually going to go here! This could take a loooooong time to sort out.
(besides, where’s 4 and 5?)
Ryan Broyles makes my list. Even if he was healthy he should have been a 4th or 5th round pick. Having a blown ACL or whatever it was at the time made it insane to reach for him in the 2nd round. Nothing about that pick made sense.
I’m sorry but Ebron tops tavai. Not only was he a waste of a player but we needed defensive tackles and passed on one of the best to ever play!
Except he’s getting millions to do it.
I still argue that IF they had no clue about his pot smoking, Charles Rogers wasn’t a bad pick in the least. The guy had all the talent in the world. Got hit with a freak injury right off the bat AND the following year, and that probably ruined him mentally.
That is the best analogy for Tavai 
I’d throw Young in as honorable mention, but no farther than that because I can’t necessarily blame Mayhew. He was very talented when he would take time off from being bat-shit crazy (I say that with all due respect to mental health. This situation was a lot more sad than it was disappointing).
AJ
DK
Diontae
Scary Terry
All were there… and Lions needed a young WR to develop.
I can understand missing on Diontae given MAC school and not great size… but the others were much better prospects than Tavai.
I can’t fathom how that decision was made.
They hired his college coach as his babysitter…errr, I mean WR coach
Of course they knew. They just saw $$$ in local revenue vs Andre Johnson from Florida.
I don’t love draft whatifs. Every team runs into them and every team would have traded up if they’d had a clue how good Metcalf or Dionte Johnson would become.
Lions had an okay draft in '19 after Hockenson, even accounting for Tavai. They got Harris and AO as starters, Austin as whatever he is and even Fulgham and Ty Johnson are productively kicking around the league. It is clear the staff wanted a LB to make their system work. If they don’t take Tavai there then they probably end up with Greedy Williams, take a different LB later and have a worse draft than they did.
My complaint about the Tavai pick, like with Tabor, was the staff overdrafting guys because they were smarter than everyone else. If you are going to reach for guys like that you need to be right, or at least justifiably wrong.
Everybody knew how good Metcalf was going to be. Teams just overthought his health status.
I would add the longsnapper to the list as well. As Quinn explained it, he wasn’t sure he would be able to get the guy as a free agent so that means using a 7th rounder on him. But then he thought someone else might be thinking the same thing, so he needed to use a 6th rounder to get in front of the team that was going to use a 7th rounder on him.
I really wanted that 1994 David Sloan rookie card that my local card shop had up on ebay. I was afraid someone may walk in the store and buy it, so I offered 3x the price listed on ebay for it. Gotta be playing chess, dummies.
Agree …. and it was a need for the Lions.
In 2018, the Lions were 25th in scoring, and 20th in passing offense.
Golden Tate was gone, and replaced by a 34 year old w/ injury history.
Marvin Jones was 29yo, and only under contract for 2 more years.
The need was significant enough that several Den posters mentioned Metcalf as a possibility for the #8 pick ahead of the draft.
I heard Bill Belichek talking up Tavai on NFL radio Friday.
He was talking about how they are going to be using him in a lot of different ways…and that his first few years in Detroit were a great success.
BB is losing it.
I don’t believe he said that! Great success. lol
Damn! We should have tried Tavai at back-up QB.
Don’t bet against BB you will likely lose that bet.
Well if they are able to make him better more power to him… but if not, I hope he’s still on the roster so we can exploit him
