Before I get any further into this blog, I want to stress one very important point: don't panic. I know that's typically what someone who's absolutely already panicking would start a blog with, but this one is different. This blog is definitely not panicking, nope. There's not a single ounce of panic in this blog. Everything's extremely cool and chill.
RELATED: Lions send unmistakable message to these 2 players with NFL Draft choices
Besides, there's enough Lions panic already emerging on the internet. That'll tend to happen when you have a, uh, underwhelming draft weekend. First impressions of the Lions' 2025 NFL Draft class aren't exactly glowing, which is dumb because no one knows anything about anyone right now. Yet, somehow, that doesn't feel like it's stopping anyone from freaking out a little bit, including ESPN's Mel Kiper. Kiper released his league-wide draft grades on Sunday, and few teams graded lower than Detroit. But otherwise, the week's going awesome. Here's (some of) his rationale.
Mel Kiper's recap of Lions' draft weekend doesn't make us feel any better about it
"I had the Lions taking an edge rusher in Round 1 in all four of those mock drafts I mentioned. Twice it was James Pearce Jr., then it was Oluwafemi Oladejo, and finally it was Donovan Ezeiruaku ... The edge rusher didn't come on Day 2, either. The Lions tackled a need, though. They traded up from No. 60 to No. 57 to take guard Tate Ratledge. He's going to fit nicely in Detroit and push to start at right guard (Christian Mahogany and Kayode Awosika are the main competition). The trade up cost the Lions their fourth-round pick, but they had a hole ... Detroit's most questionable move, though, was trading up from No. 102 to No. 70 to take receiver Isaac TeSlaa. Good player, but he was ranked No. 149 overall on my board. I count 12 receivers ranked above him who were still available -- and nine of them still would have been there at the Lions' original slot."
I'm just going to totally ignore all that wide receiver stuff – it's too theoretically depressing for me to deal with before anyone actually plays any football. Not getting an edge rusher earlier was a bummer, but the Lions have not seemed concerned about their edge depth at literally any point this offseason, so maybe they know something we don't? At least he liked the Ratledge pick.
This is usually the point where everyone tries to point out some of Kiper's historically-bad draft misses in some sort of ill-fated attempt to discredit Mel Kiper, and if you wanna do that, I certainly won't stop you. I'm not going to go there, but you do you. C's still get degrees, even when ESPN gives them to you.