It might not make sense for the Lions to draft Tua Tagovailoa, but the Alabama quarterback might make sense for several teams. That’s why the Lions could find themselves in prime position come draft day.
Detroit owns the No. 3 choice.
Lions General Manager Bob Quinn said exactly what you would expect him to say about the potential for trading the choice: The phone lines are open.
“The higher you are up in the draft, really the sooner the conversations begin,” Quinn said in a video interview with Tori Petry of the team website Friday. “I have not had any trade conversations with anybody as of yet. Those usually tend to start in the combine in the hallway that we kind of roll through, and we’ll see how that goes.”
LSU quarterback Joe Burrow is expected to go No. 1 overall, whether it’s to the Bengals or someone else, and Ohio State defensive end Chase Young is the favorite for Washington at No. 2.
The Dolphins, Chargers and Panthers then could seek to move up to select Tagovailoa, assuming his surgically repaired hip checks out before the draft.
“If you trade down and come away with Derrick Brown or [Jeff] Okudah, that’s huge,” NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah said in a conference call Friday, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “Isaiah Simmons could come in there and be a big-time player as well. And then you start getting into [South Carolina defensive tackle Javon] Kinlaw. That’s probably the last one, and that would be the group where I’d say, ‘OK, if you’re picking at three, I don’t know that I want to go much further than six, at the furthest seven.’ If you get in that range, I think you come away with one of those guys.”
The Lions sound committed to Matthew Stafford as their quarterback of the present and the future, with Quinn reiterating that he has no plans to trade the veteran.