2011 NFL Draft: Detroit Lions Draft May Be Looked Back on as a Disappointment

The Detroit Lions organization could very well look back on the 2011 NFL draft as the draft that they really screwed up on.

This was arguably the most important draft that the much maligned franchise has ever seen, and that would even be true on a normal year. The fact that the NFL lockout has hindered free agency, compounded with the fact that nobody has any idea what the format of free agency will look like, made this draft even more important for the Lions.

I’m not saying that they blew it, but I am saying that I think Lions fans might end up being very disappointed with the results of this draft in hindsight.

I don’t know what exactly happened in the minds of Jim Schwartz and Martin Mayhew that caused them to go to bed as members of the Detroit Lions organization and wake up as the New England Patriots, but I think that they strayed far away from the course they needed to be on in the 2011 NFL draft.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the Lions shouldn’t look to teams like the Patriots, Packers, Steelers or Colts and try to emulate the draft success that they have had. But I am saying that those teams got to where they are by drafting for needs, both present and future, and that is why they can now take chances with picks that can be deemed to be brash or gutsy.

Before I’m accused of being a hater let me get to the actual picks and break down some of my thoughts.

Drafting Nick Fairley at No. 13 overall was somewhat inevitable, so I can’t say much negative about it. If a potential top-five pick falls that low you are almost forced to take him, and I can also see what the Lions are trying to do coupling him with Suh.

The general thought is that if the Lions have a dominant defensive line than it will in fact make their linebackers and secondary better, which I agree with to a certain degree.

The problem here is that I think many fans are forgetting that Detroit arguably had one of the best defensive lines in the league in 2010, and they still got torched in the secondary.

What is going to stop those same players from getting spun around for a second consecutive season?

I thought that the Lions would address those needs in the second and third rounds, and ultimately I would have been very happy with that.

This is where the “New England Syndrome” came in to play though (yes, I just coined that), and this is where I feel the Lions' draft went horribly south.

Taking Titus Young was a luxury pick, and for a team that can’t afford luxury it made no sense to me.

Is he really going to make that much of a difference? Sure, he’s a nice little player, but don't forget where he was putting up all those numbers.

No offense to the mid-major conferences of college football, but Young played at Boise State. What has always been the knock on Boise? They don’t play high-level competition.

That’s the guy that you feel was best to take in the second round? With all the holes that your defense still has!?

I would have understood the pick more if they would have then used their trade down pick in the second round to address defense, but instead they decided that giving up a valuable draft pick to take Mikel Leshoure was exactly what the team needed.

Meanwhile, Brandon Harris, who many thought to be a first-round talent at corner, was sitting pretty just begging to be picked.

I think this second round is going to come back to haunt the Detroit Lions. Granted, they took the best players available, but they had glaring needs to fill on the defense. Young and Leshoure still fit needs on the offense, but in the end my opinion is that there were bigger fish to fry in the second round.

The typical response by Lions fan here is to say, “Hey we got Douglas Hogue in the fifth round and he’s a linebacker!”

My response to that is if you want to hang your hat on Douglas Hogue as your big defensive prospect then more power to you, but I am not going down with that ship.

Another response I have heard in defense of this abysmal second round is that the Lions will take care of their defensive needs in free agency.

This is lunacy.

First of all, free agency is not even an option as of right now, and we don’t even know how much different it could look.

The Lions might have to sorely overpay for a talent set that they could have easily drafted in the third round.

Second, the free agency class of 2011 is horrible, especially on defense where it really matters for the Lions.

To think for even one second that Nnamdi Asomugha is going to come to Detroit is just pure idiocy. Word has it that Philadelphia and Dallas have a huge inside track on bringing him in, and even if they didn’t there is no way that he would willingly come to Detroit!

It’s like going from the real Oakland to the Midwest’s version of Oakland! Both on and off the field, no less!

In the end I believe there is a group of people who absolutely hated what the Lions did outside of the first round of this draft, and to be honest I am not scared to voice that opinion.

I am tired of running around with the “slappy’s” talking about how the Lions can be Super Bowl contenders with their new and improved defensive line. I am tired of pretending that Martin Mayhew is the best thing since sliced bread.

New flash: The last guy making your draft picks was Matt Millen.

The Lions could have blindfolded me and asked me to point at a list and I could have drafted better than Millen.

The bar was not very high to begin with, so let’s keep that in mind while looking at the progress that the Lions have made.

In the end, the Lions had a great first round, but they negated any progress they could have made with the risks that they took in the second round.

I think the 2011 NFL draft is going to be looked back on as a disappointment for the Detroit Lions.

Follow Andrew on Twitter: @AKonSports