The Three Biggest Overreactions About The Detroit Lions’ 2026 NFL Draft Class: ‘The Lions played it too safe’
The Lions had a pretty good draft, but they also had some people overreacting to some parts of it
The 2026 NFL Draft is over, and the Detroit Lions walked out with seven new players. There were a bunch of different takes out there, and of course, there were some overreactions as well. Today, we’re going to talk about the three biggest ones.
“The Lions pivoted away from best play available”
If there’s one thing we know about the Lions, it’s that they are not a needs-based draft team. So when the Lions primarily drafted players who fit at positions of need this year, the thought was that they went away from being a best player available team.
That’s not exactly accurate for multiple reasons. The first one is that the draft was just kind of perfectly set up for the needs to be met. Even if the Lions truly wanted to do something crazy and pick a player in a position they didn’t need, they never really had any chance to.
The other thing is that Holmes kind of told you this would happen when he was talking about still going forward with the best player available.
“There’s times where you might – it lines up. Maybe the best player is a perceived need, and it lines up that way. It’s lined up like that in the past, but that’s not always the case.”
The Lions didn’t need to trade up
The Lions made two trades in this draft, and they were both to move up. They moved from 50 to 44 in the second round to get Derrick Moore to start the draft. Liso fans sort of freaked out about that one, and some draft analysts couldn’t understand why they would do that.
It’s pretty simple. Just look at the team they moved ahead of. The Ravens needed an edge rusher; they drafted an edge rusher, and they probably would have liked the guy their head coach was the defensive coordinator for and their defensive line coach was the defensive line coach for at Michigan.
In terms of trading up for Law, there was only one team that had a reported top-30 meeting with Law, and that was the Steelers. The team the Lions jumped to draft him. So, in honor of going to get their guys, they did need to move up to go get them.
The Lions missed on a better tackle and a better edge by playing it too safe
Personally, I think the Blake Miller and Derrick Moore fits make a ton of sense and always made a ton of sense. That’s why both were mocked to Detroit so many times. A lot of Lions fans wanted either Monroe Freeling or Zion Young in those spots.
I get it, but at the same time, I think maybe some Lions fans might have fallen a bit victim to the buzz on both of those players. At the end of the day, the knock on them was the same thing. They barely had any experience as starters. Especially Freeling, who has just one year of starting experience.
It would make so much more sense if the Lions were in a position where they were a rebuilding team as opposed to a team that wants to and can contend for the Super Bowl in 2026. Getting players who can play now is so much more valuable than guys who can maybe play later, but can be really good when they do.
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