Detroit Lions: Bob Quinn’s best draft picks by round

Bob Quinn’s Best Draft Picks – Second Round

Only one more section after this and we’ll see that there’s a reason that people say, “You win some and you lose some.” The selections here aren’t as compelling as the previous options due in no small part to one bad pick and a couple that haven’t delivered much value yet. The candidates are A’Shawn Robinson, Jalen “Teez” Tabor, Kerryon Johnson, Jahlani Tavai, and rookie D’Andre Swift.

Robinson was a starter on the interior of the defensive line at tackle for four years, staying on the field for most of that time but never being a dominant player. Tabor couldn’t get on the field because he just wasn’t able to stay with a professional wide receiver away from a very short space. He was selected at pick 53 after running a sub-4.6 second forty-yard dash during the combine.

Another Quinn move that has come under scrutiny was the trade-up to take Kerryon Johnson, which cost an extra fourth-round draft pick to get done. Johnson has had moments where he looks the part of a starter and 1,000-yard back but he has also spent about half of his short career on injured reserve. Part of the consideration is that these higher picks are ones that general managers have to get right, the expectation of a first or second-round prospect is that he is near an immediate starter.

With fans still waiting for Kerryon Johnson to fulfill his vast potential, D’Andre Swift, the former Georgia running back, has a great opportunity to wrest away the biggest role in the running game if he impresses early. This should be another Georgia-Auburn battle worth watching.

Jahlani Tavai was hurt coming into the 2019 draft and the Detroit Lions still elected to take him at pick 43. A shoulder injury set Tavai back from doing much of the testing during the draft process which didn’t sit well with pundits and fans alike. Similar to the Tabor pick, Quinn had his reasons for taking a player that many thought was not worth the draft pick used.

With the Tabor pick, he, “watched more tape than any player he ever scouted”, and with Tavai the line was that the New England Patriots were going to take him soon and he had a hard-to-find body type.

If the team was winning, those remarks would be on t-shirts instead of as memes of things that general managers shouldn’t say to their fans. Tavai has since played well enough that most people have come to think it was an okay pick, even with him playing just 52 percent of the team’s defensive snaps in 2019.

However, A’Shawn Robinson via his 37 starts and 58 appearances as a run-stopping nose tackle is the best pick so far. Pound-for-pound, he’s the most ornery defensive tackle at 6-4, 330-pounds. Again, never dominant but a solid pick that spent four years in Detroit doing his job. Robinson signed with the Los Angeles Rams as a free agent this offseason. He left with 5.0 sacks and 172 tackles, not horrible for the number 46 overall draft pick.