Detroit Lions Draft: A great first half but downhill on Day 3
By Bob Heyrman
It’s day three, where it seems Bob Quinn decided to check out and left let the Yahoo fantasy draft time out and auto pick took over for Detroit.
Everything was shaping up perfectly for the Detroit Lions, but things did start to go south a bit in the fourth round of the draft. Detroit was set to pick with the 109th pick in the draft, the third pick in the fourth round, but traded it away to the Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders jumped up to select John Simpson, a guard out of Clemson.
The Lions went from 109 to 121 but missed out on two very talented defenders by doing so. With the 121st pick, Detroit secured Logan Stenberg, a guard out of Kentucky. Detroit used consecutive picks on offensive guards, clearly understanding a weakness and addressing it.
It appears the Lions are going all-in with their offense this season; it’s unexpected considering most of us thought Quinn and Patricia would be focusing more on their abysmal defense of a year ago. With the first five picks of the draft, Detroit selected three offensive players.
Stenberg is a mauling guard with impressive strength, ESPN ranked him as the seventh-best guard in the draft and the 143 overall prospect. Detroit selecting him at 121 isn’t that far off from his projection. He, along with Jackson, is expected to compete with Joe Dahl for the two starting spots on the offensive line unless Detroit elects to continue to use this same ridiculous guard rotation from a year ago.
Here’s the thing with Stenberg, or more with moving on from picking 109th. The Lions missed out on cornerback Troy Pride Jr, a player that will, in all likelihood, become a starter within the first three years of his rookie deal. Drafting Pride Jr to play opposite Okudah after Desmond Trufant‘s two-year deal expires potentially puts two shutdown corners on the field from one draft class.
The other defender Detroit missed out on was a massive defensive tackle from the University of Utah in Leki Fotu. Fotu is a player we often mocked to the Detroit Lions not only because of his upside, but he’s the prototypical Matt Patricia type nose tackle at 6-foot-5, 340-pounds.
Fotu isn’t a perfect prospect, of course, or he’d been drafted somewhere in the first two rounds. Fotu doesn’t display much of a pass-rush, but he’s an animal defending the run due to his size and strength.
Not only did Detroit miss out on Fotu and Pride Jr, but they could also have still selected a potential starting guard with an abundance of potential just a round later with either of their two picks, but Detroit decided to go in a different direction.