2012 NFL Draft: Why the Detroit Lions Have to Start Drafting Offensive Linemen

The Detroit Lions' offensive line is awful. I will repeat that for those of you who still believe we have acceptable pass protection and run blocking. The Detroit Lions' offensive line is awful! They leak pass rushers to the backfield far too much, get no movement in the run game and are mainly on the wrong side of 30. 

In an attempt to find out why the Lions have not had a decent line in a decade, I looked back over past Detroit drafts to look for any reasons why. Maybe all of our picks were boom or bust prospects? Maybe there have been unfortunate injuries or surprising busts from early picks who have never quite developed? The answer, as it turns out, is none of the above. It is something far more disturbing.

In the 2001 NFL Draft, Matt Millen took Jeff Backus with the 18th pick of the first round. Then he went back to the offensive line by picking Dominic Raiola with the 18th pick of the second round. While people will debate about the quality of these linemen, especially Backus, they have started for the Lions for eleven seasons. However, since 2001, the Lions have only picked one offensive lineman in the first three rounds of a draft. That was Gosder Cherilius in 2008, and we all know how that has turned out. Here is a table showing the year, number of offensive linemen the Lions picked, and which round they were in since 2011.

Offensive Linemen

Year	Number Picked	Round Picked
2002	1	7
2003	1	7
2004	1	6
2005	0	N/A
2006	0	N/A
2007	0	N/A
2008	1	1
2009	1	7
2010	1	4
2011	1	7

As you can see, the Lions front office has not tried terribly hard to pick up and develop talent on the offensive line. Even GM extraordinaire Martin Mayhew has only picked three in three years, and only one is in a round where you would expect that player to see any significant starting time. With this in mind, is it really a surprise that the Detroit Lions cannot get a good offensive line of the field to protect the quarterback and give our running backs some daylight?

This brings me to the 2012 NFL Draft. With the welcome success the Lions are having, gone are the days of top ten picks in Detroit. This means that the Lions will no longer get to select those can't miss prospects like Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh. This makes the work of the GM even more important.

So far, Mayhew has ascribed firmly to taking the best available player. While this is a totally acceptable tactic for a team like the 2008 Lions, where there is little talent to be found on the roster, or the 2011 Green Bay Packers, where there is talent everywhere on the roster, for the current Lions I think it is time for a change, both in policy and in who we draft. 

The Lions have no need to draft quarterbacks, running backs, linebackers, defensive linemen, wide receivers or safeties in the first round. Although there is not a shut down cornerback on the roster, Chris Houston and Eric Wright are more than holding their own, and hardly deserve to be replaced at the moment. This leaves the Lions with one real position of weakness on the roster—the offensive line. In reality, they will need to replace Raiola and Backus within the next two years because of their age alone, let alone their sub par play. Stephen Peterman has been an example to how not to play offensive guard, and unless Gosder Cherilius can turn his season around soon it is time to stop waiting for him to develop. Only Rob Sims is young enough and is performing well enough to deserve to start on a playoff team. 

Worse still, with the lack of offensive line draft picks in the last ten years, the Lions are short of backups with legitimate starting potential. In reality, Jason Fox is the only one, and with his injury history that is far from guaranteed.

With this is mind, the 2012 should be the year of the offensive lineman in Detroit. The draft is one of the best for the offensive line is quite some time, with talented players like Mike Brewster, Kelechi Osmele, David DeCastro, Nate Potter, Mike Adams and Peter Konz all likely to be able to be picked by Detroit. If the Lions use their picks in the first three rounds to take three offensive linemen, they will be setting the stage for a Super Bowl parade in Motown in a few years time.