Detroit Lions

WR pick not Millen-esque

Come on now, let’s not get carried away. You all understand taking wide receivers in the second round two years in a row is not the same as taking them with the second, seventh and 10th overall picks three straight years, right?

The Lions have an approach to the draft and it has been working. They have shown great discipline the last two years, trusting their evaluations, trusting that the player at the top of their board is the right fit for them, regardless of positional need.

They didn’t reach to get an average to bad cornerback in the second round. Their board told them that receiver Ryan Broyles was the best player and they took him.

They got the same type of cornerback prospect in the third round as they probably would have in the second.

And don’t sleep on Broyles. Burleson will be 31 this season and his contract is up in 2014. The Lions did a thorough medical examination and have no worries about his repaired left ACL.

I think people are going to be cheering this pick down the road. The Lions see him as a Wes Welker-type slot receiver, only with more speed.

Chris McCosky
Chris McCosky has covered sports – prep, college and pros – in Michigan since 1980. Before taking over the Lions beat in 2010, he covered the Pistons for 16 years and then the Red Wings in 2009-2010. A graduate of Eastern Michigan University (B.S., 1980), McCosky began his long and winding journalistic journey – covering preps at the Observer & Eccentric, to being associate sports editor at the Muskegon Chronicle to covering University of Michigan football and basketball for the Ann Arbor News from 1988-1992. In that time he covered two Rose Bowls, the Wolverines' NCAA basketball championship run in 1989 and in 1990, he broke the news of Bo Schembechler's retirement. McCosky lives in Livonia and is the proud father of three grown kids – Ryan, 26, now the assistant varsity and head junior varsity baseball coach at Davenport University; Rory, 23, living and working in Livonia; and Molly, 21, in a medical assistant program at Davenport. He can he reached at cmccosky@detnews.com. Follow him on Twitter, @cmccosky.

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