Detroit Lions will draft a quarterback, just not who the fans want
By Robert Jones
With the draft only a month away, the Detroit Lions are all but guaranteed to take a quarterback, but it most likely won’t be who the fans are begging for.
Despite the advent of the NFL owners’ meetings in Phoenix, Arizona, the Detroit Lions and the rest of the league are in full draft preparation mode.
Consider this; just four weeks from today will be the first round of the 2019 NFL Player Selection Meeting or as we commonly refer to it; the draft. On that evening Lions fans everywhere will finally get to see what general manager Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia have up their sleeves.
The debate about who the Lions should select has raged on and will continue to right on up to the very minute that Roger Goodell reads the name on the card the Lions submit to him that evening.
Then the next debate will begin as fans will either throw their arms up and cheer for a pick they approve of or roll their eyes and wonder what on Earth Bob Quinn is thinking.
And that debate will occur because there is absolutely no ‘right’ choice that will make 100% of the fans happy. Some will celebrate and others may throw leftover pizza at their television sets. But whether you like the pick or not, it will be part of the foundation that Matt Patricia has spoken about while at the owners’ meetings.
If you have listened to what both Quinn and Patricia have said during their interviews with the press, they have put their cards on the table. The Lions are in a building mode. Not re-building as in ‘re-building since 1957’.
The majority of the free agents they signed are still quite young with a lot of football left in them. These are considered some of those foundation pieces. Some of the players that will be returning from last season will be considered foundation pieces. So it goes without saying that whoever they draft, not just in the first round but all selections overall, will also be part of that foundation.
Which means that maybe when they announce the name of the quarterback the Lions will select in the draft, perhaps he will be a key member of the future.
The problem is this; don’t expect to hear that quarterback’s name called in the first round.