How interest in Tua Tagovailoa helps the Detroit Lions draft

Likely draft scenarios

If we play this subject out to a logical conclusion, the Detroit Lions are in a good position to trade down because it is likely that Washington will select Chase Young after Cincinnati takes Burrow. If Cincinnati were to take Young, for instance, it would throw the entire balance of the draft off, though. If they liked a second-tier quarterback like Jake Fromm, Jalen Hurts, or Jacob Eason they could help the Detroit Lions out a lot by pushing arm talent to Detroit’s pick in round one.

The possible barrier is that the Detroit Lions have no ability to control Washington’s pick just prior to theirs. It seems very unlikely that the Bengals will pass on Burrow when they have an opportunity to let second-year head coach Zac Taylor have a young QB to groom.

Likewise, it would seem silly for the Redskins to pass on a premiere pass rusher and what many scouts see as a can’t-miss prospect to trade down unless they got a Hershel Walker or Ricky Williams sized jackpot. However, at the third spot, there is no have-to-draft prospect but multiple players who are in the conversation of who to take next. The Dolphins do have five picks in the first two rounds, which gives them the ammunition to trade up for almost any pick that they desire in front of their fifth overall, though.

With that in mind, it wouldn’t be shocking for everyone above the Dolphins to put on a show to gauge how many draft picks that they might extract from them; they own picks 5, 18, and 26 in round one, plus 39 and 56 in round two. Overall the Dolphins have eleven picks with six in the top 70, list from Tankathon.

The players available after Chase Young have some promising names that Detroit Lions fans are familiar with if they don’t move far, defensive tackle Derrick Brown, cornerback Jeffrey Okudah, and hybrid defender Isaiah Simmons just to name the main defensive prospects.

The Drafttek NFL draft value chart has the value of the third overall listed at 2,200 points. For the Dolphins to trade their number five overall, with a 1,700 value, the draft value chart would suggest that the way to compensate the Lions would be to give them the number 26 overall, a 700 point pick with the Lions throwing back day three picks to even out the transaction.

What we know is that in practice, teams that want to trade-up do so at a premium. An example is what the Chicago Bears gave the San Francisco 49ers to trade-up one pick in the 2017 NFL draft to select Mitchell Trubisky. The draft value chart says that the number two pick has a 2,600 point value while the Bears possessed the same pick that the Lions have this year, a 2,200 point pick.

Chicago ended up sending their numbers 3, 67, 111, and a third-round pick in 2018 (number 70) according to the NBC Sports Chicago article.  Using the chart the values are as follows, 2,200, 255, 72, and 240 for a total of 2,767 points of value for the 2,600 points pick. Essentially that is the difference of a mid-late third-round pick about number 84 or 85 that they overpaid according to chart math.

The Bears got Trubisky and didn’t have to settle for Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes or Houston Texans QB Deshaun Watson. Yes, we are laughing. That is not the point of the exercise, though.

It would be likely that the Detroit Lions would get extra picks for moving without having to compensate the Dolphins back if a trade was going to transpire.

It also really doesn’t matter that there are three top-level quarterbacks available, either.  Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert and Tagovailoa battling to be the number one and two quarterbacks also helps the Lions. The more hype about these players the more it will drive up the cost of making a move for one of them.

Logically, if the draft falls the way many believe it will the Detroit Lions will have 3-5 players that they love sitting there on their board while the Giants are another team that look like they would move, having already drafted their quarterback and running back. This combination could scare Miami knowing that waiting might allow another team to leap-frog them for Tua or Herbert.

The other simple thing that could happen is that Quinn is really not interested in dealing but has decided on a prospect prior to the draft. He could simply prefer one of the men we mentioned earlier to players available later in the same position group or believe that one player is too unique to pass on.

A universal draft truth is that if you don’t need a quarterback, the more quarterbacks that are selected, the better your pick becomes. Next week we will get back to Reese’s Senior Bowl defense prospects as promised last week.