NFL Draft rumors: Ryan Kelly is Detroit Lions' "top want"

With only one day until the NFL Draft, expect rumors to be flying in every direction across the football media. When rumors leak this close to the draft, you have to take them with a grain of salt. General managers, player agents and anonymous scouts all have varying motivations for letting news slip through the cracks, and the veracity of some reports should be called into question.

With that disclaimer aside, Matt Miller of Bleacher Report published a set of rumors for each NFL team "from credible league sources." Miller said of the Detroit Lions, "[Ryan] Kelly is the top want from new general manager Bob Quinn, according to scouts who have worked with him in the past."

This is certainly a plausible rumor. Kelly to Detroit was a sensible idea made popular by NFL.com's Daniel Jeremiah, who mocked Kelly to the Lions two weeks ago in his mock draft. Last week, we discussed the reasoning as to why that pick would make sense.

But there's something curious going on here. Miller's source for this information is "scouts who have worked with [Quinn] in the past." Why would former scouts know that information about Quinn? Are these the scouts who were part of the old regime and were subsequently terminated when Quinn was hired? If so, there's a chance they knew of Quinn's intentions early in the draft research process, but Quinn's opinions could have certainly changed since then.

Or are these scouts ones that were employed alongside Quinn in New England? If so, there's no real reason they would have this kind of information.

In the end, while this speculation is absolutely plausible, there's no real reason to believe it is anything other than a rumor at this point.