The ideal scenario for the Lions with the No. 3 pick in the draft was pretty straightforward: trade down and draft Jeff Okudah.
Then no one below them made an offer. So the Lions did what they felt was the next-best thing and simply drafted Okudah third overall.
Detroit's lack of leverage in trade talks was due in part to the obvious fact it wasn't taking a quarterback at No. 3. The club has made it abundantly clear it's committed to Matthew Stafford. And with the Giants also out of the QB market at No. 4, there was no incentive for a team like the Dolphins or Chargers to move up.
It's enough to wonder whether Bob Quinn and the Lions should have played their cards a little closer to their chest.
"We played it the right way," Quinn told the Jamie and Stoney Show. "We study what other teams want, the other teams do a great job of studying what we want. Ultimately we weren't in a position to take a quarterback that high. We felt we had greater needs on the team for this season. That was kind of the decision we made in the week leading up to the draft.
"But we evaluated everybody, as we do every year, especially the quarterback position because we know how important it is in the NFL. We evaluated those guys, liked a number of them, just didn't feel like it was right at No. 3."
As for the idea of a trade, Quinn reiterated the Lions "didn't even get an offer. Not even, 'Hey, evaluate this offer and get back to us.' We tried, we made a few calls ourselves to see if teams were interested, and ultimately they weren't."
As expected, the Dolphins took Tua Tagovailoa No. 5. It's since been suggested the Lions should have drafted Tua themselves and forced the Dolphins to pry him from their hands, a la the Chargers with Eli Manning and the Giants in 2004.
San Diego took Manning first overall, then shipped him to New York for fourth overall pick Philip Rivers, a 2004 third-rounder, a 2005 first-rounder and a 2005 fifth-rounder. The Lions wouldn't have gotten the same return for Tua, but in theory they could have forced Miami to draft Okudah and package him in a trade to Detroit.
"Easier, I'd say, much easier said than done. Much, much," said Quinn. "How do I know that Tua was their guy? How do I know that they didn't really want an offensive tackle, which they had talked a lot about? There's so many 'maybes' in that conversation, that's why it doesn't really happen in the NFL.
"That's a tough question. My gut reaction is I probably wouldn't have taken a fifth-round pick to move back two spots," he said. "I don't think that's good business, because I would have been really upset if someone then jumped the Giants and took Okudah. Can you guarantee that, whatever, the New Orleans Saints didn't give up next year's (first) to move up to No. 4 to take Okudah? I probably wouldn't have done that for a fifth-round pick."
