Mayhew Draft Picks

[LionsWhyMe]

'09 1st overall Matthew Stafford - QB
'09 1st Brandon Pettigrew - TE
'09 3rd DeAndre Levy - LB

2nd Louis Delmas - S, 3rd Derrick Williams - WR, 4th Sammie Lee Hill - DT, 6th Aaron Brown - RB, 7th Lydon Murtha - T, 7th Zack Follett - LB, 7th Dan Gronkowski - TE
​

'10 1st Ndamukong Suh - DT
1st Jahvid Best - RB, 3rd Amari Spievey - S, 4th Jason Fox - T, 7th Willie Young - DE, 7th Tim Toone - WR

'11 1st Nick Fairley - DT
2nd Titus Young - WR, 2nd Mikel Leshoure - RB, 5th Doug Hogue - LB, 7th Johnny Culbreath - T

'12 1st Riley Reiff - T
'12 2nd Ryan Broyles - WR
'12 3rd Bill Bentley - CB
'12 5th Tahir Whitehead - LB
'12 7th Travis Lewis - LB
4th Ronnell Lewis - LB, 5th Chris Greenwood - CB, 6th Jonte Green - CB

'13 1st Ezekiel Ansah - DE
'13 2nd Darius Slay - CB
'13 3rd Larry Warford - G
'13 4th Devin Taylor - DE
'13 5th Sam Martin - P
'13 6th Corey Fuller - WR
'13 6th Theo Riddick - RB
7th Michael Williams - TE, 7th Brandon Hepburn - LB

'14 1st Eric Ebron - TE
'14 2nd Kyle Van Noy - LB
'14 3rd Travis Swanson - OL
'14 4th Nevin Lawson - DB
'14 5th Caraun Reid - DT
'14 6th T.J. Jones - WR
4th Larry Webster - DE, 7th Nate Freese - K

46 draft picks... 23 are currently still on the Roster (per se), and 23 are no longer on the Team.

 

[broncosmitty]

Ronnel Lewis instead of Travis Lewis. Hahaha.


Even funnier that he got his man in the 7th after all.

2013 definitely sticks out like an unsore thumb.

 

[tpaulus_2]

Larry Webster was on the roster all year, for what that's worth...

 

[Naughtymax]

'09 1st overall Matthew Stafford - QB
'09 1st Brandon Pettigrew - TE
'09 3rd DeAndre Levy - LB

2nd Louis Delmas - S, 3rd Derrick Williams - WR, 4th Sammie Lee Hill - DT, 6th Aaron Brown - RB, 7th Lydon Murtha - T, 7th Zack Follett - LB, 7th Dan Gronkowski - TE
​

'10 1st Ndamukong Suh - DT
1st Jahvid Best - RB, 3rd Amari Spievey - S, 4th Jason Fox - T, 7th Willie Young - DE, 7th Tim Toone - WR

'11 1st Nick Fairley - DT
2nd Titus Young - WR, 2nd Mikel Leshoure - RB, 5th Doug Hogue - LB, 7th Johnny Culbreath - T

'12 1st Riley Reiff - T
'12 2nd Ryan Broyles - WR
'12 3rd Bill Bentley - CB
'12 5th Tahir Whitehead - LB
'12 7th Travis Lewis - LB
4th Ronnell Lewis - LB, 5th Chris Greenwood - CB, 6th Jonte Green - CB

'13 1st Ezekiel Ansah - DE
'13 2nd Darius Slay - CB
'13 3rd Larry Warford - G
'13 4th Devin Taylor - DE
'13 5th Sam Martin - P
'13 6th Corey Fuller - WR
'13 6th Theo Riddick - RB
7th Michael Williams - TE, 7th Brandon Hepburn - LB

'14 1st Eric Ebron - TE
'14 2nd Kyle Van Noy - LB
'14 3rd Travis Swanson - OL
'14 4th Nevin Lawson - DB
'14 5th Caraun Reid - DT
'14 6th T.J. Jones - WR
4th Larry Webster - DE, 7th Nate Freese - K

46 draft picks... 23 are currently still on the Roster (per se), and 23 are no longer on the Team.

Interesting. What we see is:

'09 - outstanding draft - above average starting QB, excellent LB, starting-caliber DT (signed elsewhere, but still a good player), Ditto S. So-so TE, and a TE traded for a decent crap-shoot at a starting CB.

'10 - good draft - potential HOF DT and good rotation DE with backup OT.

'11 - disaster top to bottom

'12 - good draft - starting LT and LB, both of whom are above average

'13 - outstanding draft - first three picks all studs, decent RB, decent DE who could still develop.

'14 - still early to judge. Ebron pick doesn't look great. Van Noy reports were glowing before injury. Swanson looks like a hit. Reid looks like he can play.

Overall compared to the league, I'd say the results are above average. Not Seahawks of the last 5 years good, not Redskins bad. If we graded every team's draft since '09 and accounted for where they were drafting, I suspect this would be a top-10 group.

 

[tpaulus_2]

Yep- Max pretty well summed it up. A pair of great drafts, a pair of good drafts, one horrible draft, and one that's just too soon to tell.


I agree with his premise that we're looking at above league-average on the whole. I think people often get too caught up with the bad picks, or say a guy isn't the pick they would have made, so they think Mayhew is doing horrible. The reality is that, when examined more closely, every GM blows picks in every draft. Even the vaunted Seahawks with their great drafting the last several years have made bad picks (Bruce Irving, James Carpenter), it's just a matter of making bad picks less often than making good picks, as well as finding value in the later rounds.


I think Mayhew gets a much worse rep than he deserves. If we fired him today he'd have a GM job again within a few years, which is a rarity in that position, fired GMs usually don't get another crack at it...

 

[TwoCents22]

It would probably look a lot better compared to other teams drafts IMO.

 

[Naughtymax]

The last issue of SI had an article of every team's offseason needs. The Redskins' greatest need was
'Different Owner'.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

Holy shit are you guys generous!!

2009 was a solid draft. You want to give him credit for the Stafford pick? Dan Orlovsky was the teams fucking QB in 2008. It took zero intelligence and talent to pick Stafford. Delmas was a solid player, Levy has proven to be a great pick. Hill moved on and was a good pick. Pettigrew was at best, an average performer for the 20th pick. The others were misses but still a very solid draft.

2010 was well below average. Again, it took absolutely nothing involving talent or vision on his part to pick Suh. He moved up to take an RB with known injury concerns. His best pick in this draft was Willie Young.

2011 - Good grief!! This is the Holy Grail of incompetence.

2012 - Two contributors out of 8 picks, one of which only got the opportunity due to injury and has less than a full season under his belt. Hopefully his second year as a starter is even better.

2013 - Finally!! Thank you Xanders.

2014 - Way too early.

Even the vaunted Seahawks with their great drafting the last several years have
made bad picks (Bruce Irving, James Carpenter)

Both starters. Those are piss poor examples of bad picks. You think Fairley picked at #13 and Pettigrew at #20 are better picks? Even Reiff isn't a dominate player (Yet, hopefully). I wouldn't put him as a pick much above Irvin and Carpenter.

At the ABSOLUTE best Mayhew deserves an average rating. Honestly not sure how anyone could score him higher. Average teams don't win Super Bowls.

 

[TwoCents22]

Look at the roster in 2008 before he took over. Look at the roster now. I really don't see how Mayhew has been average at best. He does take too many risks as far as red flags come draft time, but overall, comparing our roster from before to now, theres really no "average" about it.

 

[Microwahevo]

Stafford wasn't a "no brainer". There were other options from different positions and he and Sanchez were the top QBs. Sanchez was coming from a very successful program and in hindsight probably propelled him to the top. But the Lions staff still had to put in work to decide whether or not to take Stafford.

 

[tpaulus_2]

Holy shit are you guys generous!!

2009 was a solid draft. You want to give him credit for the Stafford pick? Dan Orlovsky was the teams fucking QB in 2008. It took zero intelligence and talent to pick Stafford. Delmas was a solid player, Levy has proven to be a great pick. Hill moved on and was a good pick. Pettigrew was at best, an average performer for the 20th pick. The others were misses but still a very solid draft.

2010 was well below average. Again, it took absolutely nothing involving talent or vision on his part to pick Suh. He moved up to take an RB with known injury concerns. His best pick in this draft was Willie Young.

2011 - Good grief!! This is the Holy Grail of incompetence.

2012 - Two contributors out of 8 picks, one of which only got the opportunity due to injury and has less than a full season under his belt. Hopefully his second year as a starter is even better.

2013 - Finally!! Thank you Xanders.

2014 - Way too early. .

Nah, you're just far too critical. You're grading Mayhew against some kind of constant gold standard, rather than evaluating him relative to his peers. And then you give Xanders all the credit for Mayhew's best draft.

Both starters. Those are piss poor examples of bad picks. You think Fairley picked at #13 and Pettigrew at #20 are better picks? Even Reiff isn't a dominate player (Yet, hopefully). I wouldn't put him as a pick much above Irvin and Carpenter.

Both picks Schneider wouldn't make again, they're starters, but both have performed well under expectations. Irving had to move positions because he was a dud at DE where he was drafted to play. Carpenter will be a 1 contract-and-gone guy for them- Reiff is a much, much better o-lineman, no questions asked.

At the ABSOLUTE best Mayhew deserves an average rating. Honestly not sure how anyone could score him higher. Average teams don't win Super Bowls.

We score him higher based on his success in building a talented roster relative to the rest of the GMs in the league. In that sense, he's been above average, plain and simple.

 

[tpaulus_2]

Mayhew seems to get a lot of flak for his bad picks, and Xanders gets all the credit for recent good picks.


Can't have it both ways like that. Besides, Mayhew hired Xanders, so he should get credit for that maneuver, too...

 

[LionsWhyMe]

Holy shit are you guys generous!!

2009 was a solid draft. You want to give him credit for the Stafford pick? Dan Orlovsky was the teams fucking QB in 2008. It took zero intelligence and talent to pick Stafford.

At the ABSOLUTE best Mayhew deserves an average rating. Honestly not sure how anyone could score him higher. Average teams don't win Super Bowls.

I wonder where the Lions would be now had Mayhew drafted Mark Sanchez instead of Stafford? It took Matt Millen 8 drafts just to get one 1st round draft pick while getting paid 5 million a year.

I'm kinda sure if the NFL had known that Katie Perry was going to use a Lion during her half time show they wouldn't have hired her. Now a Lion has made a Super Bowl Appearance, it's something the NFL seems to be against. There's no money in letting the Lions win.

 

[LPinSLC]

Why would it be a Lion when the song is about a tiger?

 

[LionsWhyMe]

Why would it be a Lion when the song is about a tiger?

Looked more like a Lion than it did a Tiger. Well, that just kills a Lion only Super Bowl appearance. Thanks for sharing that. lol

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

 

[jdwills126]

I think Xanders should get the credit for the UDFA.

He was brought in to help with scouting and ranking theses guys. Fauria, Waddle, and a few others he has hit on in his short time.

 

[LionsWhyMe]

Why would it be a Lion when the song is about a tiger?

Looked more like a Lion than it did a Tiger. Well, that just kills a Lion only Super Bowl appearance. Thanks for sharing that. lol

Just remembered... the NFL Network had Katie Perry on trying to get hints about her halftime show and she said that it would be different and that there would be a Lions and Sharks in her show. You made an excellent point but you'll need to ask her.

 

[Dr. Evil-er]

We score him higher based on his success in building a talented roster relative to the rest of the GMs in the league. In that sense, he's been above average, plain and simple.

Geez, I wonder who couldn't have improved the roster with 6 offseasons, I think he's had 12 picks in the top 50, 4 Top 10 picks (3 of which were Top 5), and he inherited the games best WR.

Way to sets the standards high.

And Micro....? A Mark Sanchez reference?? Really? Really? Come on man.

 

[Microwahevo]

And Micro....? A Mark Sanchez reference?? Really? Really? Come on man.

Yes. Just bc we know now that Sanchez sucks(although he did decent for awhile in Kelly's offense) doesn't mean the front office didn't have to do the due diligence in making the correct pick. Yes, we needed a franchise QB, but that doesn't mean he was necessarily the right pick just bc he was rated the highest QB in te draft. Remember when EVERYONE and their mom thought Reggie would be selected #1 and the Texans selected Mario? Same thing there. The front office did their homework and selected who they best thought could help their franchise.