Many of the Lions’ mock drafts that have been posted so far state who they have the team picking with the #13 overall followed by a statement with the following disclaimer, "unless Amukamara is available".  As a reaction I decided to make a post examining which players are likely to go before Detroit is on the clock to determine the likelihood that Prince Amukamara drops that far, or who might be on the board that other teams would be tempted to trade up to #13 for.

As close to a lock as possible to go before #13:

Marcell Dareus

Patrick Peterson

Von Miller

Highly likely:

Nick Fairley

Da’Quan Bowers

A. J. Green

Likely:

Robert Quinn

Julio Jones

Prince Amukamara

At least one of the QB’s (Newton, Gabbert, Locker)

Possible:

Aldon Smith

J. J. Watt

Cameron Jordan

One of the OT’s (Tyron Smith, Castonzo, Carimi)

A 2nd QB

Unlikely:

Ryan Kerrington

Mark Ingram

Corey Liuget

Another OT

A 3rd or even 4th QB

Very unlikely:

Anyone else I could think of

According to my list there are 6 players that fall in categories above Amukamara.  This means that 6 of the 12 picks before the Lions should be accounted for, so Prince would have to make it past the remaining 6 picks.  There are 3 possibilities that are approximately equally as probable as Amukamara to come off the board in the top 12, and 5 possibilities in the group below him, for a total of 8 players.  This means that of the 6 remaining unaccounted for picks 6 of the 8 other choices would have to happen before Amukamara to have him drop to the Lions at #13.  To me this appears to be a not very likely scenario, however that one of the players in the "likely" category will drop to the Lions seems fairly plausible.  Of those, Julio Jones, Cam Newton, or Blaine Gabbert seem like the best trade bait to me; while Quinn seems like lower quality trade bait because of the quality of other D-linemen that would still likely be on the board.  However, if there is a run on QB’s or O-linemen in the early picks, or another player from the "unlikely" list is drafted early, then the chances of Amukamara dropping improve quite a bit (so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed).

So, this post seems to reaffirm what most people around POD keep saying, that it is unlikely that Prince Amukamara will drop to the Lions at #13, but that it is possible.  Let me know if I left anyone out.