Gotta be bad medicals after his surgery? I was ok with Chi taking him in the 3rd. Most everyone had a top 100 grade on him.
So we've traded up for 4 picks this year and the 5th pick we made our GM said he attempted to trade up for. So what's the deal with Brenden Rice? Seems he was a top 100 guy who still hasn't been picked yet.
This was a weird day. The first two guys kind of feel like a Holmes heat check to me, which is one thing if they're just guys who fall to you but feel different when you're trading next year's picks away to take them pretty high. Hope I'm wrong about both of them, but the OL seemed like an attempted flex on some level, and the Utah guy seems like a Belichick-type thing where you're getting cute and outsmarting yourself for the wrong reasons.
We seemingly like Vaki a ton during the draft process so not surprised we went out to get him. Tons of people are liking Manu, too. We’ll see what happens obviously but I’m not sure what would’ve been there for us had we held back
I'll give Brad his one weird pick a year if he continues hitting on the others like he has Also his two 6th rd picks could have been 4th rd picks and people wouldn't have complained much. The OL is also a guy I could see teams having higher on their boards than draft experts
If Manu can be coached up, the measurables and potential are there. Let him eat, sleep and basically live with Sewell, maybe in year 2-3 we can actually get some production. The Vaki pick is the wild card I have no idea about.
This is pretty much where I'm at. Manu has obvious potential from a measureables standpoint where I can understand the premise of dealing a next year's pick (even if it's a 3) to take a shot at some wild upside for cheap. Vaki to me is a "wouldn't it be cool...!!" pick that is almost always better in theory than in reality. He played both ways at Utah, which is great, but he's not playing both ways here. And if we're announcing him as a RB, we just drafted a RB in round four while dealing a 5 and a next year's 4 to do it. And we did it on a roster that already has Gibbs/Montgomery + a decent 3rd guy in Reynolds. That's just really rich for me.
Watching the Tigers game and a dude was wearing a Rodriguez new version of Lions jersey. Interesting choice
Tough not to love the draft after it all shook out especially with the 6th round. Generally not a fan of trading up so often but I knew we were going to do at least one when we had so much 25 draft capital. Don’t know if I totally understand the Vaki selection but it sounds like Ben Johnson was his biggest fan
The quotes on this are tough to know for sure. At least from the ones I saw yesterday. Seems like they told him they want him to play on the right side, which he noted because he's only played on the left before. And then he was the one who seemed to project that means he would be playing guard next to Sewell. But the quotes were pretty speculative on his part, IMO. I would hope we would at least try him out at tackle first.
Albert Breer says Holmes was planning to trade up for another player (he believes Darius Robinson) before he realized Arnold could be available. I like what really happened more than the speculation.
Trading up for Darius Robinson would have brought out the complete opposite reaction in me on Thursday. I would have been really annoyed. Brad has done great. He's probably already the best Lions' GM of all time. And I'm all about trading up for guys like Arnold. But he needs to find someone to stand next to him and tell him to calm down and not trade up for every player he likes. It's definitely his first instinct and he talks about it even in the scenarios when he doesn't make moves (like saying he was trying to trade up from Onwuzurike in 21 or Rakestraw this year).
Somebody with more time than me should put together a list of all of the picks that Holmes has traded up for, all the capital he’s given up for those players, and who went on the spots we traded up from.
Traded up for (round selected): 2024 Terrion Arnold (1st) Giovanni Manu (4th) Sione Vaki (4th) Mekhi Wingo (6th) 2023 Brian Branch (2nd) Brodric Martin (3rd) 2022 Jameson Williams (1st) 2021 Derrick Barnes (4th) I'm probably forgetting a deal or two, but I'm positive on all these guys, at least.