Mock Draft Has Lions Landing 2 Impact Defenders After Major Trade Plays Out

Getty Joey Porter Jr. celebrates a Penn State win over Auburn in 2021.

Mock draft season is starting to get wild, with many different outcomes being presented. With a pair of first-round picks, the Detroit Lions are seeing plenty of outcomes get pitched.

Many of them don’t strike the right chord of intrigue with the market saturated and just a few weeks before the draft plays out. Pro Football Focus, however, may have had one of the more interesting mocks of the entire process from a Detroit perspective.

Writer Sam Monson put together a mock update at the site, and had the Lions trading backward with the sixth-overall pick. In this mock, Tennessee moves up for quarterback C.J. Stroud. The Lions move down to the 11 spot and grab Joey Porter Jr., a cornerback out of Penn State.

“The Lions trading back from No. 6 makes me feel a lot better about grabbing a cornerback at this spot. Most people would have Oregon’s Christian Gonzalez here, but I worry about a lot of his game. Joey Porter Jr. is the best press-man cornerback in the draft, but he has plenty of zone ability, as well. Over the past two seasons, he earned an 80.0-plus PFF coverage grade in zone coverage,” Monson wrote in the piece.

With Detroit’s next selection at pick 18, Monson had the chance to land another cornerback in Oregon’s Christian Gonzalez. Despite some reservations about the player, he does so given how much further down the board this spot is from the top 10.

“I am far lower on Christian Gonzalez than most — a player with sick movement skills and elite athleticism but who never allowed a passer rating lower than 74.7 in his college career. There’s significant risk attached to his projection, and I feel a lot better about that gamble if I’m playing with house money the way Detroit would be here having already drafted Porter. This is the type of double-dip that could pay off down the line for a team looking to have long-term, sustained success,” Monson wrote in the piece.

A mock that suggests the Lions add a pair of defensive backs has not been common in the process, with many now centering around the idea of adding help to the team’s defensive front. It is no less interesting for a team like Detroit, which has been seen as theoretically weak on the back end this offseason in spite of improvements.

Adding these pair of players would transform that weakness into a major strength overnight, and could give the Lions the makings of a very deep secondary heading toward the 2023 season, but more importantly, beyond.

Joey Porter Jr., Christian Gonzalez’s Stats & Highlights

What would this tandem of players bring to the Lions? It would give Detroit one of the best duos in the draft in terms of prospect fits for 2023.

At 6’2″, Gonzalez is tall and long, and has speed to burn given he showed out with a 4.3 second 40 yard dash at the NFL combine. That makes him a very popular pick with scouts, and could make him popular with the Lions’ brass as well. In terms of production, Gonzalez has opened some eyes in a short amount of time with the Ducks.

The numbers show Gonzalez is a high-riser, and in the minds of some, a player who has the status of being one of the best potential cornerbacks in the draft. He posted 128 tackles and four interceptions in his college career.

As for Porter, while playing for Penn State, he has proven himself one of the top players at cornerback in the draft. Statistically, he’s been solid given he has racked up 112 total tackles, one interception and 20 passes defended in a four year career with the Nittany Lions.

Adding one of these players would be interesting enough, but putting both in the mix for the Lions would represent a potential game-changer for Detroit in terms of their future.

Lions Could Benefit From Adding Cornerback Pair

There are many different ideas about how to rebuild the Lions this offseason, and one of the most common lately has been the notion that the team must add to their defensive line to help out the backfield.

This offseason, the Lions already added Cameron Sutton, Emmanuel Moseley and C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the mix. Those moves will theoretically boost the team for the short-term, but what about the long term?

Sutton signed a three-year deal, while both Moseley and Gardner-Johnson have been added on one-year pacts. That fact could show that the Lions could be back in the predicament of lacking depth at cornerback one year from now.

What would adding a pair of rookie corners do to the defense? It would give the Lions some fantastic future depth. The team would be able to roll with at least a handful of solid cornerbacks on any given moment. Additionally, all of the players in the group would be athletic specimens, and capable of adding something different to the defense.

As ideas go, it might not be that bad of one for the Lions to remember as they ponder the best way to finish out the 2023 offseason. It’s just another way the Lions can go about the 2023 draft.