Quote:
Originally Posted by jppaul
Are we any better than the Lions, for the redundant drafting, they drafted three WR in as many years.
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Going back to 2002 when they drafted Joey Harrington, they could have drafted John Henderson or Albert Haynesworth.
2003 they drafted hometown boy Charles Rogers instead of Andre Johnson. It's not that they shouldn't have drafted a WR, they just got the wrong one.
2004 they drafted Roy Williams because Rogers was not the answer. Imagine if they had had gone with Haynesworth and Andre Johnson the two previous years, they could have gotten Ben Roethlisberger in this draft.
2005 was the Mike Williams draft. This guy was considered a top pick the year prior, but simply was denied the opportunity to enter the draft. In attempt to surround the QB with weapons to make him successful, the investment in Williams was probably a reach considering his lack of another year playing. They could have gone after Senior Bowl phenom DeMarcus Ware, but that would have been silly, right? The best player at that draft slot was probably Derrick Johnson, but we also passed on him, opting to trade down.
2006 the Lions decided to forget about WRs and drafted Ernie Sims. Not a bad choice considering they passed on Derrick Johnson the year before. The option of Jay Cutler was there, but if they had drafted Big Ben in 2004, that wouldn't have been necessary. What about Combine stud Broderick Bunkley or Haloti Ngata to put next to Albert Haynesworth? I'm forgetting that Shaun Rogers was on the team, so how about CB Antonio Cromartie?
2007 Calvin Johnson was considered to be the BPA in the draft. Oakland went with Russell, so the Lions would have been thought of as crazy for not selecting the surest thing simply because they had made mistakes at the position before. Personally, I thought Adrian Peterson was the BPA, so I would have gone that route.
To re-cap the Lions 1st round draft picks could have looked like this:
2002 - DT Albert Haynesworth
2003 - WR Andre Johnson
2004 - QB Ben Roethlisberger
2005 - LB Derrick Johnson
2006 - CB Antonio Cromartie
2007 - RB Adrian Peterson
Gee, I bet Matt Millen wishes he had a time machine.