With each new year in NFL Draft analysis, the idea of trading down out of a top-tier pick becomes more and more enticing with the plethora of new information that NFL Draft teams have to assess prospects.
Every team in the NFL wants to be like the New England Patriots, who have been executing these clever trade-downs over the past 20 years and have used mid-to-late round draft picks like future Hall-of-Famer Rob Gronkowski to keep the dynasty alive.
While nobody can truly replicate the success of the Patriots, the team trying the most to imitate New England is the Detroit Lions, who have acquired former Patriots defenders like Jamie Collins, Duron Harmon and Danny Shelton to try to do a bad impression of Belichick's dynasty.
One way to improve upon that impression is if the Lions were to trade down from their No. 3 spot in the NFL draft. Detroit has a lot of needs that could be improved upon with any pick in the draft, especially if they could get the reward of more draft capital with the trading down.
Mike O'Hara of the Lions' official website outlined what a Lions trade down would look like with the Miami Dolphins, especially if they fall in love drafting Tua Tagovailoa. In his mock draft, he still had the Lions ending up with cornerback Jeffery Okudah, who would be a perfect fit within the Lions defense.
And it doesn't take a rocket scientist like former submarine engineer and Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia to figure out that drafting Okudah at No. 5 and getting more draft picks is a better value than getting Okudah at No. 3.
General manager Bob Quinn and his regime should at the very least kick the tires on trade ideas with the Miami Dolphins and the Los Angeles Chargers.
Both of those squads are quarterback-hungry teams in a draft where the stock of quarterbacks like Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert gradually continues to rise. Perhaps floating out more rumors of drafting Matthew Stafford's replacement could get these teams to trade up while not letting the Lions drop too far in the NFL Draft.
Danny Bennett of Lions Wire stressed the importance of looking into these trades and using the former Alabama quarterback as trade bait, especially if the Detroit Lions want to win sooner than later.
Tagovailoa is talented enough that there should be a bidding war for teams to trade with the Lions. The Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Chargers, Carolina Panthers, Indianapolis Colts — and maybe more — should all be in the market for quarterbacks in the draft. Lions fans just need to hope that Quinn is prepared to rake these teams over the coals and make them overpay to land their new franchise quarterback.
Owner Martha Ford has told Quinn and Patricia that this Lions team needs to win this season in order to retain their jobs.
Getting their guy in Okudah and hitting on the late-round picks acquired in the trade to win in 2020 would be a damn good Patriots impression.
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