Detroit Lions have NFL draft history of busts when picking at No. 7

On Apr 25, 2021

The Detroit Lions are on the clock. Well … they’re six picks away from being on the clock, with the No. 7 overall pick in this year’s NFL draft, which begins Thursday in Cleveland.

It’s the franchise’s third straight year drafting in the top 10, after a run of four years drafting in the 11-20 range. While it’s too soon to tell how those picks — T.J. Hockenson at No. 8 in 2019 and Jeff Okudah at No. 3 in 2020 — will work out in the long term, we have 54 drafts to parse since the AFL and NFL merged their draft in 1967. With that in mind, let’s look back at the good and the bad from the Lions at No. 7 (though you can probably guess where the Lions slot in, more often than not).

The Lions

Let’s start in Detroit, where the Lions have selected No. 7 overall four times since the AFL/NFL merger, but not since 2004, when then-general manager Matt Millen made the pick of …

2004: WR Roy Williams

The buzz: Williams was a star for four seasons at Texas, racking up 241 catches for 3,866 yards and 36 TDs in 48 games with the Longhorns en route to a ranking as the No. 2 wideout on most draft boards. (Williams’ speed made him No. 1 on some boards, but the consensus No. 1 was Pitt’s Larry Fitzgerald.) Williams wasn’t nearly as successful right away with the Lions; he hauled in 99 of his 212 targets for 1,504 yards and 16 TDs in his first two seasons, though that was with Joey Harrington throwing to him.

In Year 3, with Jon Kitna at QB, Williams broke out with 82 catches for 1,310 yards and seven TDs, earning a Pro Bowl nod. It was his only 1,000-yard season. Williams caught 64 passes for 838 yards in 2007 and was traded to Dallas about a month after Martin Mayhew replaced Millen as GM and 15 minutes ahead of the 2008 trade deadline. Williams played three more seasons, but never caught 40 passes or reached 600 yards again.

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1990: QB Andre Ware

Ware won the Heisman Trophy after putting up nearly 4,700 yards passing at Houston, playing in the run-and-shoot offense. Lions offensive coordinator Mouse Davis was an early architect of run-and-shoot — what could go wrong, especially with previous Heisman winner Barry Sanders in the backfield? Plenty, it turns out.

Drafted with the expectation he’d sit behind one of the five other QBs on the roster, Ware held out and didn’t sign until late August. Then, injuries and incompetence forced him to start in mid-November. His lasted a half, going 5-for-11 passing for 48 yards and two interceptions and was pulled for veteran Bob Gagliano in a 17-7 loss to the Vikings. The Lions shelved the run-and-shoot after the season, and Ware appeared in just 10 more games over the following three seasons — five starts — and finished with a 51.6% completion percentage for 1,112 yards, five touchdowns and eight interceptions.

1987: DE Reggie Rogers

Rogers attended Washington on a basketball scholarship, but also played football; upon focusing on the gridiron, he became a consensus All-American with 95 tackles and seven sacks as a senior. His time with the Lions was troubled even before he started training camp, clouded by the death of his brother Don from a cocaine overdose in 1986, lawsuits against his first agent and a misdemeanor assault charge from a fight with a former girlfriend. He even missed his first meeting at rookie camp.

A players’ strike disrupted his rookie season, as did a dispute with Lions coaches over his technique: “In no way am I saying the defense should be built around me,” Rogers told the Free Press in late October that year, “But they say everything I did in college was wrong. How can you be an All- America and the first defensive end taken in the draft if something you did wasn’t right? I see better when I’m up. Then I don’t worry about the blocker, but just go to the quarterback, to the ball. Doesn’t it make sense to even try it on passing downs?” Less than two weeks later, Rogers entered an emotional counseling center in Pontiac, missing more than a month. He finished his rookie season with five solo tackles.

Year 2 was worse. Demoted to the pass rush on the nickel defense, he started slowly but began to impress his coaches.

And then, on Oct. 20, 1988, a nightmare: Driving drunk, Rogers slammed his Jeep Cherokee into a Dodge Omni carrying three teenagers in downtown Pontiac. The teens were killed; Rogers suffered a broken neck and a nearly severed right thumb. Charged with three counts of felony involuntary manslaughter in April 1989 and released by the Lions in July, Rogers was finally found guilty of a lesser negligent homicide charge in December and served 12-and-a-half months in Jackson on a 16-to-24-month sentence. After prison, he attempted a comeback and played two games each with the Buffalo Bills and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.