Heading up to the 2019 NFL Draft, Detroit Lions head coach Matt Patricia and general manager Bob Quinn both made it clear that they believed in Matthew Stafford as their quarterback.
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Because of that, many were surprised when reports surfaced in early March that the Lions had met with quarterback Kyler Murray.
Murray, who ended up being selected by the Arizona Cardinals with the No. 1 overall pick, was never really thought of as a player who would drop to the Lions at No. 8. And even if he did, there was no way Quinn would pull the trigger.
So, if there was really never a chance that the Lions would select Murray in the draft, then why meet with him?
Patricia recently sat down with Pat McAfee of The Pat McAfee Show 2.0 and he explained exactly why the Lions met with Murray and other quarterback prospects the team had no intentions of selecting.
“Probably a little bit of a tip of what we try to do here,” Patrica told McAfee, “When quarterbacks come out in the draft, you evaluate all of them. You know we have to anyways. As a head coach you are looking at all of those guys, everybody in the draft.”
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Patricia went on to add that meeting with top quarterbacks in the draft is actually a strategy he was taught as a young defensive coordinator.
“But even as a defensive coordinator,” Patricia said, “one of the things I was told as a young defensive coordinator was, you know, you should always look at all the top quarterbacks coning out because whether, you know, they wind up on your team or you wind up playing against them, you want to get all that work in ahead of time. So, it was kind of something we already did.”
The Lions open the 2019 season on the road against, you guessed it, Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals and you can bet Patricia will have his team ready.
