Notes: Detroit Lions named 5th most likely team to trade in NFL Draft

Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn hasn’t exactly been the wheeling-and-dealing type in the NFL Draft over his three years on the job. In his first ever draft, he didn’t make a single trade despite having ten picks in 2016. The next year, Quinn only made a single trade, moving down in the third round to pick up a fourth rounder. Last season, Quinn was at his busiest. He not only traded up in the second round, but he traded back into the fourth round using 2019 draft assets.

Despite a relative sparse history of trading in the draft, expectations are high that the Lions will be active during draft weekend this year. With Quinn openly saying his team is open for business to move down in the first round, and rumors about dealing with the Atlanta Falcons still burning hot, USA Today lists the Lions as one of the top five teams most likely to trade their pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. And author Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz has an idea of how they may do it.

“Finding a team antsy enough to leap ahead of the Broncos at No. 10 to grab a passer could be the key to Quinn’s vision materializing,” he wrote.

With so much smokescreening going on at this time of year, it’s hard to imagine all of these rumors are true. However, there has been an awfully large amount of smoke around Detroit and their desire to trade down this year. Could all these rumors actually materialize on draft day?

• Tori Petry of DetroitLions.com has a nice recap of what Lions players were up to this offseason prior to reporting for offseason training on Monday.

• Speaking of offseason training, the Lions shared a photo album of players arriving for work on Monday. Some notable players in the photos were newly-added Justin Coleman, Trey Flowers, and Rashaan Melvin. There were no pictures of Matthew Stafford, and the team declined to comment on whether he attended (remember: his wife has a brain tumor and could be getting surgery this week.)

• In case you were wondering, the 2019 Snacks’ Snacks Madness tournament has crowned its champion. Congratulations to the rightful winner, Oatmeal Creme Pies:

• Read it if you dare: Nate Atkins breaks down the film and specs of Iowa tight end T.J. Hockenson, a potential first-round pick for the Detroit Lions.

• Now that the players are together again, it’s time for some serious trash talking. Quandre Diggs was the first to land a haymaker:

• If you read one thing today, it should be this: Chris Burke of The Athletic traveled alongside Lions head coach Matt Patricia to Alabama, where Patricia was asked to speak about killing bad football. It’s rare we get an in-depth piece on Patricia like this and Burke does a fantastic job.