Slow leak: Lions lay an egg in drafting another receiver

There's always one of those moments on NFL Draft Day that makes your jaw drop, sending you scurrying to try to figure out just why a team did what it did, causing you to rub your head so much it turns your hair into the Mel Kiper Jr. pompadour.

Saturday was no different. This time, it was the Detroit Lions who caused the ruckus when they used the 10th overall pick on receiver Mike Williams of Southern Cal.

Mike Williams and his mother, Kathy McCurdy, react to his being chosen by the Lions. (AP)

The Matt Millen Era in Detroit has seen the team move on an upswing, which has some in that city excited. Plus Steve Mariucci is a good coach, and the building blocks of a good, young team are in place. But by no means is this a team that can be considered a Super Bowl threat.

They Lions are not even the best team in the division. Maybe not even one of the best two.

So how it is that the Lions can afford the luxury of drafting a receiver with the 10th overall pick, even though they used top-10 picks on receivers the past two years? How many passes are there to go around?

Better yet, who's doing the passing?

Isn't this the same team that signed over-the-hill Jeff Garcia, he of the fluttering deep pass, to help push fourth-year quarterback Joey Harrington? Isn't this the same organization that has whispers creeping out its walls that the coach doesn't really care too much for the quarterback he's now starting?

Yet here they are on draft day, with the 10th overall pick, having a chance to improve some of their weaker areas, and they decide to take a receiver who didn't even play football last year, a receiver whose 40 times seem more tight end that sprinter.

If the Lions had not used the second overall pick on receiver Charles Rogers in 2003 and the seventh overall on Roy Williams last year, this wouldn't be such a questionable move. Rogers has had some injury concerns, missing time in each of the first two seasons, and maybe the injury issue is worse than the Lions are leading on. But on the surface this seems like a horrible move.

Williams will be a good NFL player -- think Keyshawn Johnson -- but is he better than Rogers or Roy Williams? Most scouts would say no. They can run. He can't.

Let's assume Rogers is healthy, and all three players can take the field at the same time. Sure, it will make it tough for the defense to handle, but since when did the Lions become a spread-it-and-throw-it team. Plus, they used a first-round pick on running back Kevin Jones last year, a player who showed star potential last season.

He has to get the ball some, too.

Three-receiver sets are the wave of the NFL these days, even on early run downs, but most teams don't have three high first-round picks filling those spots. It's too costly, too cap unfriendly.