No, the Lions aren’t going to draft a quarterback with the 8th pick

Last night the Detroit Lions held their annual event for their season ticket holders. It’s a chance for the fans to come out and ask guys like Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn questions about the direction of the franchise and what to look forward to during the offseason.

When Bob Quinn took the stage, he was asked about the possibility of taking a quarterback with the eighth pick in the draft. Then PFT got involved and everyone lost their minds. If you woke up this morning and saw this tweet, there’s a chance you’re getting ready to see the Lions take a quarterback with the eighth pick after they ship Matthew Stafford halfway to Siberia.

Alright, let's pump the brakes here. Now that PFT has their page views, we can talk about what’s really happening here. Here is the full quote from Bob Quinn last night.

“Yeah, we’ll consider any position in the draft at any point in time,” Quinn said. “Whether it’s the eighth overall pick and we have multiple picks later in the draft. We’re in a position now with the eighth overall pick that the whole draft is really wide open to us. We’re not really going to eliminate any prospects.”

He finished out the question by saying, “If there’s a quarterback out there that we deem could help us this year or in the future, we’ll never close the door on that.”

That’s what Bob said last night, but here’s what those words really meant.

It’s smokescreen season. people. It’s that time of year where NFL GMs think that they’re being slick by saying stuff like this. For some reason, they believe that it will throw other NFL teams off from their strategy and land them the player they wanted all along. This is a great strategy if you’re the Denver Nuggets and you’re picking after Joe Dumars, but that’s not the case here.

I have no doubt that Bob Quinn and company are exploring the quarterback prospects. I’m sure they’ll more than likely select one. But the chances that they actually do that in the first round are minuscule. Frankly, Bob would have said the same thing about any position if he was asked. As our own John Whiticar put it so well.

Perhaps the biggest factor in telling that this is a smokescreen is Bob Quinn laying it all out there for Matthew Stafford in his postseason press conference in early January.

“Matthew Stafford is our quarterback. He will be our quarterback here.”

That’s just a little bit of what was said. Quinn went on to defend Stafford against narratives like quarterback wins and even spent a good amount of time talking about how much of a leader he is to the team. Bob talked for nearly an hour and probably half of that was about Matthew Stafford. We’re now to believe that a month later he’s changed his mind, and he’s going all in on a passer with the eighth pick despite several great pass rushers just sitting there waiting to have their name called?

I don’t buy it. Other GMs aren’t going to by it either, nor should you. The Lions are standing by their man here. To trade Stafford would mean that Bob Quinn somehow took a team from the playoffs in 2017 to a full rebuild in 2019. That’s typically not an indication of good management. So I really don’t see Bob doing that.

Don’t burn your Stafford jerseys, people. He’s not going anywhere.