NFL Draft: Reaction To Detroit Selecting Jahlani Tavai
What does everyone think about the Lions taking Tavai?
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Not everyone is happy.
Hawaii linebacker Jahlani Tavai was taken earlier than expected by the Detriot Lions with the 43rd pick. There was a ton of reaction for the Hawaii linebacker being taken by the Lions, some good an not so good.
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Expert Grades
I love him. He flies around to the football. Nowadays you’ve gotta have a guy that can fly around and run.
This seems like a crazy reach. He’s an unknown player from a second-tier conference who missed his final six games with a shoulder injury, though he still had 82 tackles. He missed the Senior Bowl and NFL combine and was arrested in a nightclub altercation last year.
The buzz: “I get that Matt Patricia wants versatile defenders on his defense, and Jahlani Tavai is certainly that. But you have to think the Lions could’ve moved down and still picked up the Hawaii product. Run-first linebackers aren’t exactly a hot commodity. Like the fit; I’m not so sure about the value.”
Tavai would be an interesting raw-tools-and-demeanor selection in the fourth or fifth round. He’s a reach here for a team with lots of needs on both sides of the ball.
What will be interesting is whether Tavai’s arrival impacts where the explosive but somewhat inconsistent 2017 first-round linebacker Jarrad Davis plays.
I like Tavai. Good player, a tackling machine with some versatility. But I don’t like him in the second round. Not with Mack Wilson and Bobby Okereke, among others, still there. Tavai is my eighth-ranked inside linebacker and qualifies as the biggest reach of the day; he is No. 137 on my Big Board.
