Part II: Draft Strategy  (Part I is here)

TL;DR - This draft has more top-level talent than last year’s, but not enough to be certain it will be available at pick #29.  The real value in this draft is in rounds two and three, where players have similar value potential to those likely to be picked at the end of round one.  Teams should attempt to stockpile picks in the middle rounds of this draft.

One of the best parts of the NFL draft is constant maneuvering.  The 2023 draft saw 41 trades with six coming in round one.  To add to the fun, the Lions were the busiest franchise, conducting six trades during the draft.  I’d expect that to continue–Holmes will move to get his guys, and move down when he doesn’t like value.

But the first thing you want to figure out is: Where is the value in this draft?

The 2023 draft is a pretty unique beast.  NIL is mature enough that it’s targeting and keeping the right players in college longer, and we still have players on COVID years.  The NIL side has kept a few good players from entering the draft, but NIL and COVID together also kept many players in this draft in college for an extra year or two, which means the class has older, more developed prospects.  Contrast that with the 2023 draft which was the first year NIL impacted entries, limiting the pool of good prospects.  In a couple of years–after NIL has been around for four years and all the COVID players are through the system–the draft will be more stabilized.

Last year, the Lions claimed they only had first-round grades on 14 players.  They drafted four of them (two in the first and two in the second).  This illustrates how different teams’ draft boards are (and how good Holmes has been at identifying talent, as it’s already clear that three of those picks are hits, and the fourth certainly could be).

The goal of the draft is to use your capital to get as much potential value as possible.  Another way of saying this is that because we know we’re not perfect (and not even very good) at identifying production in the draft (Holmes crushed it last year but made a big trade for Jame-O who is far short of expectations at this point) the objective is to pick as many players as possible AT THE RIGHT TIME.  You might have a board of 75 players your organization really likes; you can’t trade up to get them all.  Last year the Lions were able to maneuver to get four prospects they had first-round grades on, grabbed a QB with a much higher consensus grade than where he was picked, and added players like Brodric Martin and Colby Sorsdal that they really liked at points in the draft where it made sense for their value.

This is a long way of saying that anytime you see a team trade up, it’s because they believe the value potential of the player they are selecting is significantly higher than the current pick.

So…where is the value?  Based on hours of research and expert opinions, I believe that this draft has about 10 more first-round prospects than last year’s draft.  That’s good!  The problem is that last year the Lions had two picks in the first 18; this year they have none.

Holmes’ track record suggests that he will trade-up in round one for a prospect he believes has more value.  I have some thoughts on whom that might be I’ll share in a later part.

That said, what’s interesting about this draft is the next tier of players: those not good enough to earn a first-round grade but good enough to earn a second, or something close to it.  I believe that tier of players is pretty massive this year, somewhere between 40-60 prospects.  For example, how big is the difference between CBs Ennis Rakestraw Jr (#37 on the consensus board) and Max Melton (#63), or even Khyree Jackson (#94)?  What about the difference between WRs Ladd McConkey (#33) and Ja’Lynn Polk (#62) or even Luke McCaffrey (#149)?

These are questions that teams must answer.  If I have similar grades on Rakestraw and Melton, I might draft either one with pick 40.  Or I might wait or trade down to try to get Melton later because there are so many guys with similar grades.

While I think Holmes is likely to trade-up, I believe that what the Lions should do is try to acquire an additional pick in the top 120.  There are so many quality prospects in the middle part of this draft, but the blue-chippers are likely gone by pick #29 and the next tier are gone by pick #164.  Since #29 has similar value to pick #40 this year, I’d be looking to trade down.  That strategy could also apply to pick #61 or #73, but much more so to the round one selection.

This is a long way of saying that I would not want to stick-and-pick at #29 from a strategic perspective.  That said, it’s likely that a player with a first-round grade does fall to that pick because of the frequency that high-level players fall (as discussed in Part I), but it’s going to be a fringe guy.  To get to the best choices for the Lions, I think they need to move up to somewhere in the 19-22 range.

People use draft value charts for pick-swapping, but it’s really just a heuristic.  Why?  Because if I believe a prospect has a value of, say, 1,000 points and that player is still on the board at pick 26 (700 points of value) then I am motivated to make a trade.  But as just discussed, many times there are clusters of players (think horizontal tiers vs. vertical draft boards) that have very similar values.  The value of pick 29 is 640, but if I believe (and I do) that picks 26-66 have similar value of around 600 points, I should maneuver accordingly.

As an NFL fan, I’d be hoping my team is loading up on second and third-round picks this year, and even going after round four selections.  This draft appears to have many more quality prospects in that range than in previous years, especially at WR, CB, OT, OC, S, RB, and EDGE.