The last seven 1st and 2nd round Lions picks

You really think that’s how tanking works?

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Past 2017 I am overall okay with the picks. PLUS…Kenny Golladay was a 2017 pick and hell, he has been awesome. Calvin who at this point.

2016…a starting LOT and a starting DT. Solid.

2018…a Pro Bowl potential center and a RB who has been injured.

2019…a TE and a starting LBer. Hard to like the TE of course.

2020…a CB and a RB. Unknown.

Jarrad Davis hasn’t been a good first rd. LBer so far. He turns 26 in November and if we are lucky maybe we can still salvage something from him? Not a good pick at this point though. Tabor? Awful.

Mayhew earned his walking paper but he also did a few good things (like 2013) in addition to a lot of bad.

I think it’s safe to say Bob Quinn hasn’t really hit on his high draft picks. Nothing shocking here.

Starters

  • Tomlinson is a starting guard for the super bowl runner up 49ers.
  • Decker is a starting LT about to re-sign to a nice deal.
  • Ragnow is a top 5 (maybe 10 if someone wants to argue) C in the NFL. Another starter.
  • Van Noy has proven to be a good player. Another starter.
  • I’d argue that Hockenson and Tavai are good players that just got drafted too high. Both will likely be starters or at least play significant roles.

Significant Roles on Team

  • Robinson drew big money to go to LA (I’m sure they’ll regret that though)
  • K. Johnson can be a very good back if he can stay healthy and share the load. He’ll be playing a big role with the Lions this year.
  • Davis I’m putting somewhere between garbage and inevitable rotational journeyman, but even he has been a starter in this league up until now and TBD for next season.

I guess I’m just not as critical as I should be? The only “trash” I see on that list is Ebron, Abdullah and Tabor, and 2 of those guys are still in the league with legit roles on their teams. There’s only 1 player on this entire list that isn’t in the league anymore. How bad can they be if this is the case?

It’s all about knowing how to use the players that are drafted and developing them which is something the Lions have had issues with for years. Patricia and Quinn thinking similarly and having so much experience together is supposed to “fix” that. I guess we’ll see. Early returns aren’t promising on that but I’m failing to see how a list that is comprised primarily of starters is widely considered to be a list of “pure garbage”.

Or… Van Noy just landed a huge deal based off great LB play. Tomlinson is a starter on a SB caliber team, Decker is our franchise LT, Davis was drafted for Austin’s D and was fine for it (better than Reuben Foster who everyone wanted), Ragnow was a great pick and will be a staple on our line for the next decade, Kerryon is talented and now teamed with Swift and Bo will give us great talent in the run game and Okudah was the best man cover press CB in the draft by far. Was Mgt. stupid for letting KVN go for peanuts when you probably knew you going to be moving to the Patriot D? Yup. Did we give up on LT too soon and was he a late bloomer? Yup. Is JD a poor fit for the MP defense? Yup. Were there some ho hum picks like A’Shawn and Abdullah and a couple real stinkers in Ebron and Tabor, absolutely, but this is not just complete trash here.

We have managed it rather poorly and not dumping Caldwell right away was a painful mistake that set us back. Maybe MP isn’t the guy but we are giving him every opportunity to build his culture and his type of players and we’ll have to see how it works. If it doesn’t then wipe the entire staff and we move on. But we do move on with players who are better than what we had and they will not whine about practicing outside if it’s cold out. So there’s that…

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I think it would be cool to put up the consensus picks this board would have had based on mocks. Would be interesting at the very least.

2013 overall was a poor draft for the league, but somehow we navigated it to have one of the best drafts in franchise history.

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2015 and 2017 were particularly hideous to me.

I’m more forgiving if you hit a double instead of a home run. But when first and second rounders bust out that will kill you. Ebron and Davis were/are too close to being busts. If they aren’t already. I mean Ebron is on his third team because the first two don’t want him.

Is that four pro bowlers?
Ansah
Slay
Martin
Warford?

I don’t think the players tanked, but I’d bet a whole lot we didn’t field our most competitive team either. If we were in a hunt for a playoff spot I’d bet some guys that were banged up find a way to play. I’d bet there was a conversation with Stafford that basically said listen we know you’d play with your back basically broken but with our misfortune so far this season and the state of the defense it’s probably best we go with the doc on this one. Aren’t the Pats known for scheming and circumventing. Maybe that’s one thing BQ and MP picked up from Belichick. Wouldn’t surprise me if ol’ Bill was telling some of his guys to take the year off.

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Tavai was actually surprisingly good last year.

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To think there are really posters on here that are calling him a bust already. Blows my mind.

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tank? My idea of taking is when you have the talent to make the playoffs or a bowl but you lose anyway. your good enough to do it and don’t.

We weren’t “good enough” in 2019 ! Our defense SUCKED, Our starting QB in Stafford played 8 whole games and then we counted on back ups , we were beat up injured as a team and used every backup we could think of putting out there. Our running game wasn’t great , Our first-round draft pick was injured and barely played at all , Patricia was trying to figure it out still… I never expected us to do that poorly, but this team was a damn wreck…you have to be Dallas good, Patriots good, Packers good, Vikings good…to “tank” that is just not win anything CLOSE to what they typically do and almost to a scheming , fishy ass level . The Lions never have their shit together, It’s always something that hangs us or too many little things kill.

But its not like we play well typically but tanked to get a shot at a certain beast draft pick .

What player are you referring to?

Tavai

Yeah, I don’t think he’s a bust but for where he was drafted, he’s a very limited role player imo. maybe he’ll be better than I think he can become but it’s another pick that looks to be a reach for a role player pick.

Could be a reach, I definitely thought he was on draft night, but he had a good rookie season and looks to have some versatility, to call him a bust now is just way too early. I think he has a very good chance at claiming a starting LBer spot and playing a very significant role on defense. I don’t get how he looks like a reach right now, to me it actually looks like he has a very good shot at outperforming his draft spot.