We are less than a month away from the 2023 NFL Draft, so that means it’s time to overload Detroit Lions fans’ senses with mock drafts. In this version of our mock draft, Ryan Mathews and I (Erik Schlitt) have joined forces to produce a joint mock draft. In this piece, we will discuss what we were thinking as we made through the draft, briefly break down the player we selected, and include any relevant alternatives that were considered when deciding on a selection. For this experiment, we used PFF’s Mock Draft simulator and only allowed ourselves the option to trade once, with the qualifier that it must fall into the parameters of being realistic. Alright, let’s get started. Here’s how the first five picks came off the board:
Louisville
Clemson
UCLA
Illinois
Tennessee
Wisconsin
Texas A&M
Michigan State