Detroit Lions draft regrets: Top 5 ‘ones who got away’

Playing ‘what if’ through the years with some pivotal Detroit Lions draft moves.

Everyone knows that even as the NFL Draft process gets more and more intense by the year, it’s still an inexact science, with a lot that can go wrong.

Through the years, the Detroit Lions have gotten plenty of ridicule (a lot of it deserved) for some of their highly publicized ‘busts’, guys like Andre Ware, Charles Rogers, Joey Harrington, and Mike Williams that entered with great expectations but flopped once they reached the league.

However, when looking at the ‘what ifs’ when thinking back to draft days that went wrong, it’s just as interesting to take a look at some of the future legends that our team didn’t pick.

This is a list of my Top 5 Detroit Lions draft day regrets, the “ones who got away”.

Counting down some of the biggest Detroit Lions draft day regrets

I’m not talking about diamonds in the rough like Tom Brady, who literally nobody expected to turn out like he did. I’m talking about highly-rated players who (mostly) fit the Lions’ exact needs at the time and who they had every reason and opportunity to pick.

Everyone one here is either a Hall of Famer already or will be soon, most of them picked immediately after the Lions selected someone else.

One of them actually even was drafted by the Lions, but still made his legendary career elsewhere without ever putting on the Honolulu Blue.