I Expect to Cry Myself to Sleep on April 25th

With the Combine behind us and most of the important free agency deals signed (questions remain about currently under-contract players such as Boldin and Julius Peppers, however), the NFL offseason is marching towards its crescendo that is the NFL Draft on April 25th and 26th. Only the pro days, which begin in the upcoming week, remain. Now granted, the pro days will be extremely important for a number of players (Crabtree, Andre Smith, Malcolm Jenkins, etc.) but most of the work is done and all of the tape has been viewed multiple times.

The question that seems to be on everyon's mind is, "Who will the Lions take with the first overall pick?" Unfortunately, the answer appears to be Stafford. All signs seem to indicate that the Lions plan on drafting a QB. After Kitna was traded to the 'Boys (Jesus-loving Kitna should be an interesting addition to an awesomely screwed up locker room atmosphere) and Orlovsky was allowed to go to the Texans, the current Lions QB depth chart reads like a bad, bad joke: Daunte Culpepper, Drew Stanton, Drew Henson. Unless Schwartz is planning to throw Stanton into the thick of it next year or make a last-minute bid for one of the FA QBs still out there (Garcia, Leftwich or JP Losman), I sincerely boubt that Mayhew and Schwartz are planning on rolling with Culpepper as their starter.

Unfortunately, the relationship between Josh McDaniels and Cutler appears to be on the mend so the train has left the station as far as the Lions having a shot at Cutler. On a side note, the Broncos fanbase that is mostly lambasting Cutler needs to get a life. Cutler is easily a top-10 QB and one of the league's true rising talents. The good people of Denver were spoiled by having Elway for so many years. So what if Cutler was a little miffed at management for trying to trade him? I'd be mad too if a new coach was hired and less than a month into his tenure his first major act as HC was to try and dump me out of town.

This man is trying to beat out Lane Kiffin for the "HC Wrecks New Team In Shortest Amount of Time As Possible" Award

At least some Denver fans are reasonable.

The problem is that the Lions have such a dearth of talent at nearly every position that any single draft pick is unlikely to affect huge change by himself. The answer then? Build a solid framework based around the offensive and defensive lines. First of all, there are some excellent OT prospects this year - Jason Smith and Eugene Monroe arguably being the standouts - whereas the QB crop is regarded by many to be overrated, dangerously inconsistent or just plain inexperienced. Any QB they drafted would likely be killed due to the ineptitude of the epically terrible joke of an offensive line the Lions coaching staff would trot out anyway, unless the O-line gets some much needed help. But hey, that whole "throw the young QB to the wolves with no O-line" worked out really great for David Carr... right? Oh, woops.

It was disturbing when I was trying to come up with a list of strong points for the Lions - positions at which I deemed the Lions needed less/no help from the draft - that I was only able to come up with a few names. Obviously Calvin Johnson is the diamond in the rough that is the Lions. Ernie Sims has now put together 3 strong seasons at OLB and is unquestioningly our best player on defense. Kevin Smith showed a lot of heart last year, rushing for almost 1000 yards despite questionable decisions by the coaching staff to keep him out of the starting lineup and having one of the worst offensive lines in NFL history be his blockers. Along the way he cared only for the team and never complained when he was benched in favor of Rudi Johnson, despite performing relatively well. Cliff Avril is another player that has earned himself more playing time next year (5 sacks in limited action in 2008). Corey Redding may deserve to be on the list since he was been pretty solid throughout his career, but he may just not be big enough to act in the Haynesworth-type role that will be asked of him when Schwartz implements his 4-3 desensive scheme (Redding listed at 295 lbs / Haynesworth 320+) .

The secondary is also in shambles, but the DB group in this year's draft is relatively weak. Malcolm Jenkins especially had an extremely disappointing combine. With the acquisition of the fairly solid Anthony Henry (168 tackles, 9 ints and 39 PD from 2006-08) from Dallas and an adjustment in the overall defensive philosophy, I believe the secondary is not the best area to address with an early pick.

With all the help that this team needs, it seems obvious that the best pick to make the team as a whole better and more secure for the future is a dominant OT (J. Smith / Monroe) or, perhaps, Aaron Curry.

I know, I know... I just blathered on how the last thing the Lions need is to take a skill position player with the first pick, but Aaron Curry may be special enough to make an exception. All hinging on whether or not they could successfully switch him to MLB (with Sims playing weakside OLB). Aaron Curry is that Calvin Johnson-esque freak of an athlete that comes around so rarely. Considering Calvin qualifies as one of the few picks that Lions management has made that has actually worked out (in fact, worked out really, really well), then perhaps it is worth it to adopt the policy that the team is so unbelievably bad and needs so much help that the best course of action is to just take the best player available.

The FA pool the Lions could draw from the offseason was virtually nonexistent. Believe it or not, players don't want to go to an economically-ravaged city and play for a team coming off an 0-16 season. Weird, huh? To have any chance at improving in the upcoming years, the Lions need to have an extremely strong draft this year. Mayhew started his tenure off the right way by robbing the Cowboys. Now it's time to make another strong move and plan for the future by taking either Jason Smith, Eugene Monroe or Aaron Curry witht he first overall pick in the 2009 draft. My personal choice would be J. Smith, but I would be happy with any of them.

That said, I fully expect Stafford to be suiting up for the Lions next year and it makes me cry.

UPDATE:

Make this happen Mayhew. Make. It. Happen.