ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Bob Quinn will sit in the Detroit Lions war room Thursday night. He’ll likely glance at the board he has spent months crafting with his coaches, scouts and front office personnel. He’s been in many of those other positions before.
But for the first time, he’ll be the one making the decisions. He’ll be the one sitting there at the end and making the final call: The Detroit Lions select ...
It’s something for which he's been preparing for years -- for this moment, his first NFL draft.
“There’s more pressure, of course,” Quinn said. “I’m making the pick. I mean, that goes without saying. It just goes into putting a little bit more work in, you know? Knowing the entire draft from the first round all the way to the seventh round, including the rookie free agents because ideally on the good teams, you get a couple rookie free agents after the draft that make the team.”
Quinn has spent months getting ready to run his first draft room for Detroit, the franchise that hired him in January to replace Martin Mayhew, who was fired in November. Quinn has said often he knows he needs to build Detroit's roster through the draft.
He comes from a place that has been consistently good in the draft, New England, with a mentor who has a very specific way of going about the draft process in Bill Belichick. Expect Detroit to look at players and what roles they will fit for the Lions, not necessarily what round they should go in.
Quinn saw the draft from many sides during his time with the Patriots -- a college scout, a pro scout, an assistant director of pro personnel and the director of pro scouting before heading to Detroit to become general manager.
But what did Quinn learn from his time in the draft room with the Patriots?
“The biggest thing I learned was probably that all the decisions are made before draft day,” Quinn said. “You know, there’s no big arguments on draft day. The board’s set, you follow the board, you follow what your plan is and there’s really not a lot of discussion about who’s a better player on draft day, either Thursday, Friday or Saturday.
“Because really all that work’s done in advance, so it’s really a calm room. It’s going to be really quiet and we’ll just let the draft come to us.”