The NFL Combine is two days in, which can only mean one thing, it’s that time of year again and the rumor mills are at a full churn, with speculations at an all-time high.
Who will move up or down with Draft day trades,? Which need will teams that have multiple areas of opportunity attempt to address first? And most importantly where the players who are targeted by multiple teams, will truly land?
No matter how comical Detroit Lions coach Matt Patricia thinks the trade rumors of Matthew Stafford are, or how many time’s general manager Bob Quinn denies it, the Lions just cannot shake themselves free of some sort of move at quarterback.
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein believes that Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has two teams as the “front-runners” for landing him, the Miami Dolphins and the Lions.
“If we work off of the understanding that Tagovailoa would be best-suited to sit part (or all) of 2020 as he continues to heal his hip,” Zierlein said, “then Detroit could be a very intriguing landing spot at third overall.”
Coming into his third season as the Lions head coach, it’s assumed that Patricia is in a win-now mentality versus building towards the future, as another substandard season could ultimately end his time in Detroit. If we look big picture, maybe a year or two down the road and the team decides — or Stafford decides — it’s time to move on, drafting a quarterback the caliber of Tagovailoa makes sense. Patricia most recently said that the Lions fans deserve a winning team and that he wants to give them that. So if we are taking it at face value, that means win now.
In most mock drafts the Lions have been predominantly tied to Ohio State defenders Chase Young or Jeff Okudah, and that seems to be the most realistic of options it just depends on what the front office values more — getting a perennial pass rusher in Young or creating a ‘magical‘ cornerback pairing with Darius Slay and Okudah, rather than Tagovailoa.
