When it came down to it, the Detroit Lions selected tight end T.J. Hockenson with the No. 8 pick in the 2019 NFL Draft and GM Bob Quinn seems very happy about the pick.
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But what if Josh Allen would have been available? Would Quinn still have drafted Hockenson or would he have changed course and selected the linebacker out of Kentucky?
Quinn joined the Jamie and Stoney Show on 97.1 the Ticket on Tuesday morning and he was asked that exact question. Not surprisingly, Quinn did not give a straight answer but he did say there would have been more of a discussion had that scenario played out.
Quotes from Detroit Free Press:
“It probably would have been a little bit more of a talking point,” Quinn said. “But I’m not going to get into who I might have taken if somebody else was on the board. The draft recap is who we took and we’re really excited about T.J., having him on the team, putting him in there with the other guys in the room, especially with signing Jesse James in free agency. I think it went from a position of weakness last year to a position of strength, so that’d be kind of what we’re looking for.”
Many armchair GMs claim that selecting any tight end in the top 10 of an NFL Draft is a poor choice when it comes to value but Quinn disagrees.
“I think there’s value in any position you look at across the league if you use the guys correctly and there’s good players, which we think obviously T.J. is,” Quinn said. “So when we kind of went into the draft process we had a bunch of names that we kind of would have liked at that spot, and as the weeks kind of got narrowed down towards the draft we narrowed in on T.J. and we were hoping he was going to be there at eight. And really at the end of the day it was really a very easy decision when we were on the clock. He’s someone that we fully vetted and really put a lot of time and effort into making sure he was a good fit for us on the field as well as off the field, and really for us it was a very easy decision.”
