2012 Draft Night(s)

[ajaX82]

4.34 40 and a 43 inch vertical. Obviously a big time athlete. Hopefully the DB coaches can make something out of him. 4-5 rd grade too so not a reach

[TSE]

Special teams are criminally underrated and make a big impact. Especially in a division with Cobb, Hester and Harvin; arguably the best KR/PR division in the league.

And how do we have too many depth guys? LB is Levy, Durant and Tulloch starting with Hogue, Palmer and now Whitehead for depth (I may have missed somebody). What's the issue? You can't have all-pros on your bench at every position

The issue is our depth and ST has always sucked and every pick I have disagreed with in the last 10 years has been rationalized yet never paid off to prove me wrong. The philosophy of how we build and manage a team is terribly inefficient and we keep overpaying for weak values whether it's Free Agency or the draft. 90% of our team's transactions are illogical and not in the best interests of the team, MAYHEW is my issue because he has done nothing but a terrible job since day 1.

[Icness]

Not gonna lie, I really wantd Iloka there. Same type of player but played at higher level and IMO safety bigger need than corner.

[TSE]

Not gonna lie, I really wantd Iloka there. Same type of player but played at higher level and IMO safety bigger need than corner.

Iloka is surprisingly around, you can rationalize trading up for a player like that who is #3 on Draftcountdown.com on the Safety board and a guy many people had in the 2nd round. To pay a 7th rounder when it seems his odds of staying on the board for another whole 1/3 of a round get exponentially more unlikely is a justified price to pay. But we still didn't have to pay up to do that, if we did things right we would have had a slew of picks up until this point in this range from previous moves whereas instead we missed the boat on that and sold those picks, just was we do every year by not trading players for picks and letting them depreciate for no SB in return.

We have a mountain of mismanaged items of value that could have been re-arranged to get us a handpicked 3-10 guys of whoever the F we would have wanted in this draft if we just planned it out in advance, or were simply logical and intelligent about what we do.

[Piston Pete]

Coming into today, I loved the picks directly after our own:

1) OG DeCastro
2) C Konz
3) OLB Spence

Overall, I'm ok with Reiff. But Broyles and Bentley were questionable at best and today's picks are not helping either. Seems like a lot of project picks that likely won't amount to much.

Would have been happier fucusing on OLine and secondary early, WR and RB late.

[TSE]

About the only thing that we can do to salvage the rest of the day is to trade some of our vets for Iloka or Burfict or there are some good value interior OL players. And for anybody that says we can't trade our players for picks right now, then my reply in advance is just a complaint about why we signed those guys or picked them such that they were here in the first place, because I see about 3 dozen guys that don't need to be here, including all of our draft picks this year.

[Icness]

Coming into today, I loved the picks directly after our own:

1) OG DeCastro
2) C Konz
3) OLB Spence

Overall, I'm ok with Reiff. But Broyles and Bentley were questionable at best and today's picks are not helping either. Seems like a lot of project picks that likely won't amount to much.

Would have been happier fucusing on OLine and secondary early, WR and RB late.

Konz was a medical red flag for the Lions. His ankle is an issue. Lions werent only team to ding him on that. Spence would have been decent pick but they essentially got the same guy two rounds later, though I don't know of any LB faster than Spence but Z. Brown in this draft.

[Piston Pete]

Spence >> Whitehead

I knew there were some medical issues on Konz, just wasn't sure what or how bad - but seems to be more medical issues with Broyles. Really wanted McNutt in the later rounds. Big body, good WR, good blocker, ect. Saw him as a late round steal.

Any rumblings of us trying to trade for Jenkins - Dallas??

[TSE]

I like Spence too, but Ice is right that it's better to have a similar ranking OLB value (Lewis not Tahir because I don't see Tahir having a high ranking like Spence) much later. If we used that same methodology with all of our picks ever year, then by now we would have been in a gorgeous situation and then domination would ensue. If only we could go back 10 years and just simply been smarter.

[Piston Pete]

I view Lewis as more of a DE project - not sure he projects to OLB in the NFL.

[TSE]

I view Lewis as more of a DE project - not sure he projects to OLB in the NFL.

Yeah I don't know, haven't studied him. But we have numbers at DE for now, so he can't see the field this year at DE plus we should give some reps to Everette Brown that we picked up this year for free to see if we can salvage him first before letting Lewis play DE. It would be my guess that Mayhew is set with his DE numbers a lot moreso than OLB so I'm thinking he would see Lewis as more of a use in the OLB rotation. We've heard in the past about Levy being used as ILB before Tulloch, so Levy could really be ILB depth to Tulloch and creating more need for more OLBs too.

If the Lions were planning on going with a new defensive scheme that features heavier DL / LB ratios then that's a completely different story, plus one I would actually be able to support. We have a terrible player mix for our system and there are better fits we could have with better systems to boot. So I'm just hoping for any change at this point, whether changes in scheme or roster design. We have a TON more opportunity to become greater than we do to become worse. The sky is the limit and it is attainable, and we have underachieved to the max.

[DocRI]

Jeff —

It seems to me like the Lions' strategy for the 5th round (and presumably on) is to take lumps of coal who they hope to develop into diamonds rather than draft semi-precious stones. Whitehead and Greenwood look like athletic freaks from non-major programs, so I'm assuming the Lions believe they can "coach them up." What do you think?

If that's the case, let's have some fun — forget BPA, and forget need ('cuz we ALL should've ignored need from the start, 'cuz that's not how the Lions draft) — if that is, in fact, our strategy for the late rounds, who are some "diamonds in the rough" we might target? Who are some other small school players with crazy measurables left on the board?

Thanks as always, Jeff!

[Piston Pete]

I view Lewis as more of a DE project - not sure he projects to OLB in the NFL.

Yeah I don't know, haven't studied him. But we have numbers at DE for now, so he can't see the field this year at DE plus we should give some reps to Everette Brown that we picked up this year for free to see if we can salvage him first before letting Lewis play DE. It would be my guess that Mayhew is set with his DE numbers a lot moreso than OLB so I'm thinking he would see Lewis as more of a use in the OLB rotation.

ESPN has Lewis meassured at 6'1", 253

And a lot of what I saw out of Lewis at OU had him as a OLB in thier 3-4 D. He seemed best at rushing the passer (DE) - didn't come off as a true OLB. Plays similar to Avril IMO.

[TSE]

The Steelers are the ONLY team in the NFL that I think didn't make at least one illogical screwball pick. Every other team in this draft I have serious questions about why they did what they did. Not saying they did a marvelous job, but they are the only team that could even qualify for consideration of a strong draft grade. This is not counting trades since I haven't found a full trade tracker to keep track of who traded what at the moment, so any teams that may have picked up bonus value for doing good trades are not accounted for.

[Icness]

Burfict will go undrafted, no point in wasting a pick.

Jeremy Lane was a guy the Lions liked, he just went though. Mike Harris another.

If you're looking for developmental upside then the better bet is small school guys. If you're looking for more immediate function you take big-school players with flaws that get covered some by your system.

I would like Kelcie McCray S Arkansas State next or Antonio Allen from So Car.
Tom Compton T South Dakota would be fine, or Reiffs teammate Zusevics.

Loads of wideouts with potential left, probably better off not drafting and cherry picking UDFAs.
Two RBs I like left: Adonis Thomas and Jonathan Grimes.

[Icness]

FWIW next Lions pick has already been traded 4 times.

[TSE]

I wrote a long piece on Burfict, and pending a meeting going well is the only way he would be picked, in which case it would be a GREAT pick because I would not want to risk losing him under that panned-out assumption and the sheer picking of him would set a tone and an example for the franchise by showing how I went out and identified a guy that WAS worthy of being picked and WAS going to be accepted and invested in and WAS promised to the community and it's fans that this is a guy that is wanted that we have every intention of making a productive and important part of the team. And then fulfilling that claim has a lot of value. It would set the tone for what I would be trying to do which would be to show how the Lions are unique in the NFL and that we go out and do whatever it takes to win while the rest of the teams are too stupid to figure out how to do that. And when our team dominates year in and year out the respect would be through the roof and we would then become an iconic and legendary sports franchise of the kind never before seen. It would be a very, very special and Purfict pick!

[kellmellus50]

Where is our 3rd string QB could it be next pick ? or will they go RB ?

[TSE]

Where is our 3rd string QB could it be next pick ? or will they go RB ?

Well we didn't make any use of our 2nd round Drew Stanton as a 3rd QB last year, he was inactive for every game. They don't need to carry a 3rd QB on the roster and could have a QB or two on the PS, so depending on their plan of how they would get their investment back, they don't necessarily have a purpose to make that pick. I don't think the team is shrewd enough to get that player on the field or to trade him for a profit so I don't know how good of an investment that could be or if they are even considering a QB there.

RB we still have lots of numbers, they might not want to cut one of those RBs to make room, so what I'm saying is that an interior OL player like a David Molk or Brewster, or this James Brown on top of Mel's board could be in the cards in addition to both RB and QB as possible choices. I'd take Burfict of course.

[kellmellus50]

They picked 3 OLB i did not know we had such a need at that position, maybe they plan on moving someone.