FanPost

The Draft, the Defense and the Details

Between all the talk of Suh, McCoy, Berry, Graham, and so forth, it's easy to see that this year's draft class is viewed as stacked to the defensive side. From what I've read on this site, aside from a few who want to trade down or take Spiller as the top pick (and the Jesus1000 posts), most posters want either Suh, McCoy or Berry as our number 2 pick. I think that our top pick will in fact be Eric Berry, and here's why: (Note: yes, this is my personal preference, so if you're looking for objective analysis, you'll be waiting a long time).

1. I think that the BPA approach benefits Berry in this situation. Although I'm not seeing this through coaches' or scouts' eyes, there are plenty of whispers going around about Suh's technique and McCoy's ability to get penetration and draw a double team in the pros. I realize the combine is yet to come, but barring anything unforseen in regard to Berry (and Wilson, which I'll introduce in a minute), I would assume the Rams will take Suh, and Berry will be available to us.

2. Within the context of the BPA approach to drafting, notice what Mayhew and company tried last year. It was about shoring up positions in a sense. By acquiring JP and Foote, then drafting Levy and Follett (and hanging onto Dizon), they shored up the LB position. Same with TE- bringing in Heller and drafting Pettigrew and Gronkowski. They even tried solidifying the OL- adding Loper, Jansen, and Salaam while drafting Murtha (although that didn't quite work out so well). My point is, if you see where I'm going with this, we've got an opportunity to take our weakest point, the secondary, and turn it into an absolute bulwark. Delmas is already in place; add Berry, and we've got a top-notch safety tandem, with Ko Simpson for depth (who knows, maybe he'll start gelling into the system in his second year). Draft Wilson, and you've got the other CB position covered (remember, we brought in CFL CB Jonathan Hefney within the last month, which isn't looking like a bad move at all). Berry, Delmas, Wilson, is a dream; Hefney and Jack Williams (coming off injury) vying for the other spot, w/ Buchanon for depth...as Rod Blagojevich would say, It's F---ing Golden!

3. This perfectly fits the pass-heavy trend of the new NFC North, with Rodgers, Favre and Cutler. It makes perfect sense to me to bolster our secondary first, given that trend.

4. A "Shutdown Secondary" helps D-lines buy time to get to the QB. True, a pass-rush D-line helps the coverage; but it works both ways. Give me the above secondary, and you'll see any D-line getting 2,3,4 more seconds to get to the QB. Good coverage works like that.

Now all of this presupposes 3 things: 1, that Berry is determined to be the BPA and drafted by the Lions, 2 that our draft crew thinks the same of Wilson and 3, that Wilson is still available for our second round pick. But in terms of that scenario, all things going our way, I think Berry/Wilson is a dream. Anybody share the opinion?

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pride Of Detroit or its writers.