Mock draft watch: Breaking down CBS Sports 'Build the Perfect Draft' for the Lions
It's always good to get some outside perspectives on the Detroit Lions and what they might do in the 2025 NFL Draft. The well-credentialed "With the First Pick" podcast on CBS Sports offered its insight on what Detroit might do.
In their team-by-team "Build the Perfect Draft" series of seven-round mock drafts, CBS Sports analysts Ryan Wilson and Chris Trapasso tackled the Lions with a little under a week to go.
The duo sort of painted by numbers in terms of picking out a position of need ahead of the actual player for each round and then finding players who fit. It's sort of the opposite approach of how Brad Holmes and the Lions go about their business, yet the picks here do a pretty good job of identifying Lions fits. Here's what they chose:
1st: Tyler Booker, OG, Alabama. The choice here went against their stated desire to bolster the defense, and it's because of positional scarcity; the DL and EDGE group is quite a bit deeper than the interior OL, notes Trapasso, and Booker's stylistic fit in Detroit is easy to see. The Lions do need a ready-to-roll guard.
2nd: C.J. West, DT, Indiana. Chosen after discussions about Shemar Turner and Omar Norman-Lott, this is quite a bit earlier than West is generally projected. Both Wilson and Trapasso compared him to Lions star Alim McNeill, and this is the range where McNeill was selected too.
3rd: Femi Oladejo, EDGE, UCLA. Trapasso smartly notes the similarity between Oladejo and Tampa Bay's Yaya Diaby, a late convert to pass rusher who has become a good NFL pass rusher--and did so under new Lions DL coach Kacy Rodgers. My personal take: flip Oladejo into the 2nd and drop West to this third-round spot and it seems more realistic.
4th: Tory Horton, WR, Colorado State. Wilson talked up his physicality on the outside and how well he handled being the focal point of the CSU offense before being hurt.
6th: Jordan Hancock, S, Ohio State. They looked hard for a safety who can feasibly play in the slot as well as split-safety looks, and settled on Hancock over a few other candidates who were more box-safety types.
7th: Fadil Diggs, EDGE, Syracuse. "No Lions fan would be upset with double-dipping at EDGE", notes Trapasso, and Wilson points out Diggs' impressive size and pass-rush style as a fit.
7th: Moliki Matavao, TE, UCLA. Solid TE3/TE4 prospect who can block fairly well and offers upside as a receiver. They only looked at TE here despite striving to land "best player available".
Overall, this wound up being a draft that most Lions fans could embrace, even if it unfolded a little unconventionally.
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