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This week NFL training camps are opening all over the country and teams are rushing to get the remainder of the draft picks signed. Some of these draft picks will prove to be better than NFL fans and media think, while some of them will be worse.
With all of that in mind let us take a look back at how the NFL teams did in the 2009 Draft, starting with the Detroit Lions.
So what does a 0-16 team need? The answer to that question in this case is everything. The Lions need a playmaker at every position on the field save for #1 WR. The sad part of that is it took them wasting four first-round picks to finally get that one right. If the Lions continue to have these kinds of draft day problems they very well could be on their way to a 0-32 record.
It seems that the Lions actually improved themselves in this draft. Of course we must balance that with the fact that they really had no where to go but up. 0-16 is a record no other NFL franchise has been able to accomplish, so the Lions are better now then they were.
With the number one pick they took Georgia QB Matthew Stafford and will pay him at least 41.7 million dollars in guaranteed money. Even if this proves to be the right pick, the Lions did it in the wrong way. The NFL and its franchise owners were looking for teams to try and control their spending on unproven draft choices while they hammer out a rookie pay scale with the players union.
The Lions gave Stafford the richest rookie NFL contract of all time and it is at least 20% more than last year’s number one pick Jake Long got. With that being said, I see 31 other teams that would have lined up to make this pick at the #1 spot. While we do not yet know if Stafford is the next Peyton Manning or the next Ryan Leaf this is a pick the Lions almost had to make. I grade the Stafford pick as an A: Bad teams need a franchise QB and Stafford at least as the appearance that he could be that.
Since the Lions had a second first-round pick earned via a trade with the Cowboys we will now factor that pick into their first-round grade. With the 20th overall pick the Lions selected tight end Brandon Pettigrew of Oklahoma State. This pick appears to be a tad bit ridiculous. Drafting a TE this high in the draft is a luxury. It is really a luxury the Lions could not afford either now or in years to come, but their draft strategy heading in was to take the best players available. They did that as Pettigrew was generally ranked the overall #1 TE prospect, but really this team had bigger needs. So I am forced to grade this pick as a D.
That gives them a first Round Grade of a B-.
In the second round the Lions made what I consider their best pick in this draft selecting safety Louis Delmas of Western Michigan. Delmas was ranked by many as the number one safety in this draft and the Lions definitely need playmakers on their defense. Delmas is probably the surest thing to be a difference maker in Detroit that they took in this draft.
On the talent level we have to give the Lions the A grade since they have three top-ranked prospects at their respective positions. However, since they left two highly ranked LB’s on the board not once but twice, and made the luxury TE selection at 20th overall I have to give them a grade of an F for need.
A look at their overall grade:
Round 1: B-
Round 2: A
Talent: A
Need: F
Average: B+
Since the later picks in the NFL Draft are made for depth purposes and to fill out practice squads we will initially only judge the teams on the first two rounds. As some of these player projects develop we will go back and look at the later rounds of each team.
Here is a more complete look at the 2009 Detroit Lions draft picks:
• Round 3 76th overall DeAndre Levy OLB Wisconsin
• Round 3 82nd overall Derrick Williams WR Penn State
• Round 4 115th overall Sammie Lee Hill DT Stillman
• Round 6 192nd overall Aaron Brown RB TCU
• Round 7 228th overall Lydon Murtha OT Nebraska
• Round 7 235th overall Zach Follett OLB Cal
• Round 7 255th overall Dan Gronkowski TE Maryland
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