In a fresh seven-round mock, the Detroit Lions (with some inherent context) go with the best player available.
With plenty of needs and nine picks in the 2022 draft, the Detroit Lions have lots of options and not many of them will be considered wrong in the moment. Fortunately, as of this writing, all the speculation about who the Lions will take second overall will be over in less than three weeks.
Detroit is in a good position, even as multiple other teams have made moves to add a second first-round pick. They have two first-rounders, three of the first 34 selections and five of the top 100. So an influx of young talent is coming, and hitting on those picks will be important.
In this mock, I used Pro Football Focus’ simulator and went with the “best player available” based on the site’s rankings. That said, I did not want to repeat positions with the first few picks for the Lions.
With later picks, if the team is well-situated at a position I went down the board a bit to find a better fit. So I suppose “best player available” was used loosely, lest I ended up drafting two quarterbacks, two punters, etc. But the reasoning for looking further down the board makes sense, I think.
So here’s a fresh, seven-round, “best player available” mock draft for the Lions.