Lions fans and non-Lions fans alike perpetually joke about the woeful draft history of the Matt Millen era, but today over lunch (two crunchy chicken tacos, one soft corn tortilla steak, side of Mexican rice, some chips and uber mediocre salsa), I poured through the draft analysis in the recent Sporting News and saw this woefulness quantified.The Sporting News issue puts forth a solid team-by-team needs analysis, but what I really love about their draft issue is that there is a team-by-team grade for the last 5 years of draft performance with legit stats to back it up. The issue lists the total number of draft picks over the past 5 years, the number of studs (loose term, but we can all pretty much agree on who is a stud and who isn't, so I trust 'em), number of starters, number of backups, number of players on other teams, and number of players no longer in the NFL.
Guess who received the worst grade? Yup, the Lions earned themselves a D-. Of the 36 picks the Lions selected in the past five drafts, they landed zero studs and only five starters. What really seals the awesomeness of this team's level of failure though, is the number of players no longer in the league.
11 of the 36 picks are not even in the NFL.
Remember, that's just a five year history. Maybe if this was at least a ten year history, that would make a little sense, but come on, that means over half those guys were drafted in the past three seasons. They aren't even 25 yet! That is 31% of all picks that are not even in the damn league.
Well, we can only continue to hope that the new administration will have a better track record. This is a key weekend coming for Detroit football as the Lions have one of the most stacked draft days they have ever seen and may ever see again. It's not often you get the first pick in the whole draft, another first round pick, and an extra 3rd and 5th rounder. The Roy Williams trade to Dallas was in my mind the best personnel move the Lions have probably ever made in my long time as a fan. I'm not exaggerating for once; I mean that. Now let's hope they take the opportunity to make this team a powerhouse on the defensive side of the ball.
For the record, my opinion on the consensus Matt Stafford pick in the first spot is "ignore the roar." I'm with the contrarians who say trade down (if anybody actually wants to trade up in this crap class of top picks) or let the clock run out. Either way, I'd take Aaron Curry (and Laurinaitis later). Risking another dud quarterback is just not a safe risk to take. The team needs to fill way too many holes with safe picks that will provide some return to risk yet another default.
As per usual, the optimism is a flowing with a little over a week to go and we're crossing our fingers for a big weekend. If there's one thing I always say that's great about being a Lion's fan, it's that the off-season is always a lot of fun. Hopefully, we'll have some reason to celebrate.Subscribe to us
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April 18, 2009
