The Detroit Lions will have to number one pick in the 2009 draft. And, to be honest, does anyone think they'll make a competent pick with nothing really changing in the front office?
Mlive.com passes on this report from Chris Mortenson:
“And keep an eye on Falcons offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey, whose work with rookie quarterback Matt Ryan has drawn rave reviews. The Lions likely to take a quarterback with the top pick.”
The top targets would be two juniors, Sam Bradford and Matt Stafford. Both have yet to declare for the draft, though, and not many other quarterbacks expected to be in the draft look near as appealing and are worth the top choice. I'll go into depth about their pros and cons later; I'm not exactly completing my mock drafts and looking at scouting reports quite yet.
Both are pretty darn good signal-callers who's teams have been pretty good in college as of late. However, taking either one would be a mistake.
I'm generally against taking a quarterback, especially an underclassman, so high. Not only are they inexperienced, come with a very high risk of failure and will demand a ton of money, but when a complete rebuilding project has just begun with massive purging of personnel on the field and sidelines, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to select a quarterback, no matter how tempting it may be to add an appealing franchise-type player whom may draw fans back in.
But throwing a quarterback on a talentless roster at least a year or two away from being respectable is not the right thing to do. Start your new team off with a solid offensive or defensive lineman; build from the trenches. Chances are, a quarterback being the biggest addition on a team like Detroit will turn out to be a disaster, with the team and, unfortunately, sometimes the player.
Mike Mularkey would be a good choice for coach. But, the Lions need to realize that he was able to make Matt Ryan so successful this season because of the players and coaches around him. Michael Turner was god-like at the beginning of the season. The offensive line and receivers unexpectedly stepped up and played a high-level. Save Calvin Johnson and sometimes Kevin Smith, the Lions have nobody like those guys.
They can select one of those quarterbacks if they want. But, the results could be devestating and set the franchise back even more (if that's possible), and something tells me those two players know just that and would take a small pay cut to avoid being in a Lions' uniform next season.
