The Lions didn't get cute. They didn't act smart. When Penei Sewell fell to them at No. 7 on Thursday night, they took the best player on the board and the best offensive lineman in the draft.
And now they have the makings of one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.
"Lions! You did the smart thing!" former Lions quarterback and NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky exclaimed in a video he posted on Twitter. "You win with bigs. Build with bigs, B-W-B, build with bigs."
Sewell, a consensus All-American at Oregon in 2019 before opting out of the 2020 season, will join an O-line in Detroit that already features an established left tackle in Taylor Decker and a Pro Bowl center in Frank Ragnow. Sewell, who played left tackle in college, will likely slot in opposite Decker.
That looks like a dominant tackle-center-tackle trio, and all three players will be 28 or younger next season. Halapoulivaati Vaitai, 27, and Jonah Jackson, 24, are penciled in as guards.
"I think the Lions now, because of Penei Sewell, will have a top five offensive line in the NFL. And I think they’ll have a top five offensive line in the NFL for the better part of a decade because of this selection," Orlovsky said. "The Lions, this is one of the first times in a long time that I feel like they are doing the right thing. Now they have a chance to build an organization."
Take it from Super Bowl-winning exec Michael Lombardi, who said Thursday he "would never pass Sewel up" if he were drafting for the Lions at No. 7 because all great teams are built the same way: in the trenches.
"That’s the key to the game," Lombardi said. "You can talk about all these receivers and you can talk about, 'We gotta get more explosive.' If you can’t block and you can’t rush the passer and you can’t control the game on the defensive front and the offensive front, you’re never going to win a title."