Carlos MonarrezDetroit Free Press
Welcome to the 2024 NFL season.
OK, technically the season doesn’t kick off until Sept. 5. And the new league year doesn’t start until free agency opens March 13.
But as we all know, the NFL has brilliantly constructed its league in a way that every month of the year matters. And the first official business of the impending season is the NFL scouting combine, which begins this week in Indianapolis.
Before the combine even starts, there are those blessed harbingers of its arrival: mock drafts. Like Punxsutawney Phil announcing the coming spring, we get those early glimpses at what teams will do during what is consistently the most important event to all 32 teams every year: the draft.
While weather-watchers have their groundhog in western Pennsylvania, treasured Free Press readers have Dave Birkett, our longtime beat writer who told us last week in his mock draft 1.0 (only eight or nine more to go!) that the Lions will absolutely, guaranteed, no doubt about it, select Missouri cornerback Ennis Rakestraw Jr. with the 29th overall pick in this year’s draft because “he’s the type of feisty, physical corner the Lions want on defense.”
He also had one interception in four years for the Tigers. So is it too early to order his Hall of Fame jacket?
First, let me say I have little doubt general manager Brad Holmes won’t stand pat at No. 29. After picking Penei Sewell seventh overall in his first draft, he traded up to pick Jameson Williams and traded back to pick Jahmyr Gibbs in the first round of his next two drafts.
Since the Lions don’t pick again until late in the second round (No. 61) and don’t have a fourth-round pick, there’s a lot of merit to trading back and getting what’s basically the pick of the litter early in the second round and packaging it with a fifth-rounder to climb into the fourth round. And no, I haven’t consulted the Jimmy Johnson draft value chart.
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Before I dive further into the Lions’ needs, I want to say something about the different nature of the draft for the Lions this year. Essentially, Holmes and Dan Campbell have already found success two months before the draft has even happened.
That’s because they have a blueprint, or a rubric if you want to be fancy about it, for the kind of players they want — even if there is a little misunderstanding about that ideal.
When some of the early high-profile mock drafts came out recently, analysts mentioned players who fit the Lions’ mold. Even though their understanding of that mold isn’t accurate. Due to all the attention Campbell gets for his press-conference demeanor and over-the-top knee-biting quotes, people often think Campbell and Holmes want fire-breathing, aggressive football maniacs.
In his second (second!) mock draft last week, NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah mocked West Virginia guard/center Zach Frazier to the Lions because he “feels like Dan Campbell’s type of player,” but he also likes Rakestraw because of his “feistiness and toughness, the aggressiveness that he plays with.”
STOCK UP: Get to know Ennis Rakestraw Jr., the cornerback mocked to Lions in NFL draft
(Brief public-service announcement: Do not draft an interior lineman in the first round. Chiefs center Creed Humphrey was a late second-rounder and has won two Super Bowls and made two Pro Bowls. They’re out there. Want to beat the Chiefs on the field? Got to beat them in the draft room, too.)
Where were we? The mocks. Right. Over at ESPN, Field Yates mocked Missouri edge rusher Darius Robinson to the Lions because he “feels like the kind of brute-force player the Lions crave on their roster.”
Yes, there’s no doubt Holmes and Campbell want tough, strong, fast, aggressive players. You know, unlike the rest of the NFL that wants soft, weak, slow, timid guys.
Jeremiah and other analysts at least have mentioned the Lions’ desire for passionate players, and that’s closer to what the Lions want. But it’s also about passion and aggressiveness that’s controlled.
Sewell and Amon-Ra St. Brown are prototypes in this way. C.J. Gardner-Johnson, a free-agent signing who took a stupid blindside-block penalty on Deebo Samuel and taunted San Francisco 49ers fans in the first half of the NFC title game, is the opposite.
As Campbell said of himself after the controversial loss at Dallas, he was filled with “controlled fury.” That should be written large on every wall in Allen Park, if it isn’t already.
The Lions want players who basically live and breathe football. They want it coming out of their pores. As Campbell said at last year’s combine about ideal prospects: “There’s a fire burning in them and they cannot sit in their seat. They’ve got to get up to talk. … You love ball and you'll eat and breathe anything for it.”
There’s a danger to this thinking because Campbell is essentially looking for himself, and might pass on a player if he misconstrues someone’s quiet nature for a lack of all-encompassing passion. It’s the kind of thinking that might lead a team to pass on Barry Sanders and draft Jeff Okudah.
No draft philosophy is perfect, of course. And I give the Lions a lot of credit for coming up with their own successful model that has been very effective.
It’s hard to define a team’s culture, especially from the outside. Yet it's clear Holmes and Campbell know what it means to them, which players they want to pursue this week and, more importantly, two months from now.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him @cmonarrez.
