2017 Lions mock draft roundup: Linebackers, defensive ends dominate final mocks

We here at Pride Of Detroit pride ourselves on being a bit crazy. Back in May, I decided to run a sort of experiment regarding the 2017 NFL draft. I would track every mock draft I could find and chart the results over time, to see if I could find trends and to see if mock drafts have any real world correlation to actual draft results and the perception of them. Since May, we’ve recorded over 500 mock drafts for the Detroit Lions and the results were interesting, both in the overall volume and the way it progressed over time.

By Position

In the preseason, it was running backs that dominated Lions mock drafts. Once the season started, mock drafts started to shift to reflect how the Lions were performing. Ezekiel Ansah goes down injured, there’s a spike of defensive end mocks. Lions posting historically awful passing defense, hence a spike of corners. This continued as the year went on, so let’s take a look at those trends. For this, I broke up the mocks into four sets: preseason, in-season, pre-combine, and post-combine. It’s pretty self explanatory, so here’s how that looks:

As the Lions awful pass defense remained an issue, mock drafters continued to give the team what they needed: stronger pass rush and coverage. When the NFL Combine finished, people started to realize just how badly the Lions needed someone to shore up their linebacking corps, and mocks shot up with players like Reuben Foster, Haason Reddick, and Jarrad Davis. Which brings us to who has actually been mocked to the Lions.

Taco Charlton dominated the mock draft scene for the Lions both before and after the combine. It’s worth noting that over the past couple weeks leading up to the draft, he’s been seriously challenged by both Haason Reddick and Jarrad Davis. Taco has also seen a significant drop off in perceived draft value, falling out of the first round altogether for some, while Reuben Foster went from obvious top 5 pick to falling right into the Lions’ range at 21 due to injuries and character concerns. Here’s how this all looks over time:

The way mocks have trended has been a bit of a roller coaster this season. We’ve seen it flip from RB and WR to DE and DT to CB and back around to LB and DE. It seems to be settling in to some combination of linebacker or defensive end as we near the draft, so if public perception is correct that is likely where the Lions focus their efforts in the first round. Last season’s top two most mocked players were Taylor Decker and A’Shawn Robinson, but I’m doubtful the Lions end up with a Taco Charlton/Haason Reddick combo the way this draft is shaping up. Still, we’ve seen stranger things in the draft and the only people who know how the teams are thinking are the teams themselves. All we can do is obsessively track these things and hope there is some secret hidden in the data.