Almost everybody passed. That tells you everything you need to know about how NFL teams viewed the quarterbacks available in this year’s draft class.
Allen Park — Almost everybody passed. And in what is undeniably a passing league, that tells you everything you need to know about how NFL teams viewed the quarterbacks available in this year’s draft class. The Lions included, though we still can’t say for sure exactly how general manager Brad Holmes truly feels about the position — and the players filling it in Detroit, from Jared Goff to Tim Boyle and David Blough — moving forward. So if you’re trying to muster some outrage over the Lions’ ignoring a perceived need at quarterback, go ahead and go crazy. Go bang the drum for Sam Howell on Day 3 of the draft if it makes you feel better, too. But if there’s strength in numbers, there’s a pretty strong argument to be made — after 105 picks over two long nights in the 2022 NFL Draft — that the Lions are on the right side of this one. Regardless of what you think of Goff’s future here. There was only one quarterback drafted in Thursday’s first round: Kenny Pickett, probably the only legitimate NFL-ready QB prospect in this draft, went to Pittsburgh with the 20th overall pick. That was the latest the first quarterback had come off the board in a draft since 1997, when Jim Druckenmiller (No.26) was the lone first-rounder. And that should’ve been your first clue, assuming you’d missed all the hints NFL personnel people were dropping the last few months in particular: If you were looking for a franchise quarterback in this draft, you were going to have to squint real hard. Still, there had been plenty of talk that even in a weak quarterback draft, some QB-needy team might trade up to the end of the first round to snag a quarterback and secure a fifth-year option on his rookie deal. But no team did, though Minnesota general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah did say he fielded a trade call or two for the 32nd pick late Thursday. Rather than make a deal, though, he went ahead and drafted a safety, Georgia’s Lewis Cine, with the pick he’d acquired from the Lions earlier in the night. Of course, that only fueled speculation that we’d see a run on quarterbacks to start Round 2 on Friday. Instead, we saw another run on … wide receivers? Seven more went in the second round, including Western Michigan’s Skyy Moore, after six — the second-most ever — had gone in the first round.
