Mike Payton talks about the Detroit Lions 1st round pick, Tyleik Williams, and whether or not they made the right pick.
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00:00The Detroit Lions addressed the defensive line in the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft on Thursday night, but probably not the way that most Lions fans thought they would. Let's talk about it.
00:11Hi, Mike Payton from A to Z Sports Detroit. Today, we're going to talk about the Lions first round draft pick Tyleek Williams from Ohio State. Obviously, going into this draft, we know that everyone wants an edge rusher. That's what they want. Opposite Aiden Hutchins, they want somebody who could just get out there, get pressured on the quarterback, get the sacks, do all the things that Aiden does and maybe half as good or as good or better.
00:40And obviously, that's just all the Lions fans really wanted. And if it wasn't going to be that, it would be an offensive lineman, maybe a receiver. I just don't think anybody pegged an interior defensive lineman in the first round. I think it was something the Lions obviously wanted to do at some point. And we knew that there was a possibility that that would happen.
01:03But it always kind of felt like it was going to be a day two thing, maybe even an early day three thing. But what the Lions get is a pretty good player. Really, really good run stuffer.
01:17Him and Lee McNeil together, once he supplants DJ Reader, whenever that might be. I don't know if that's 2025 or if that's 2026. We know that Reader only has one year left on his deal. So there's good chance that he just kind of, you know, flexes in and out with Reader early on in his career.
01:38Other than that, these two guys together, Williams and McNeil, try to run on him. It's going to be really hard to do that. And we know the Lions really want to stop the run. First and foremost, make teams one dimensional. That's what they're there to do. That's what they want to do.
01:54But the good thing is that up front with Williams, you're going to have a guy who's probably going to start alongside Reader while you wait for Lee McNeil to get back from his torn ACL, which could be as late as November. It's going to take some time.
02:10This was a late season torn ACL. And as we know, they can take a long time to get, you know, healed up from. And obviously you saw that with Jamison Williams, Hendon Hooker. Both those guys took a long time before they were able to play again.
02:25So we don't know when McNeil's back, but let's just say it's November and you've got a starting defensive tackle in Tyleek Williams and you've got Roy Lopez and you've got Makai Wingo coming back and Levi Onzarike and Broderick Martin.
02:41And you've got a nice group that the Lions can really rely on on the interior. This is a good pick for the Lions. This is a good player. However, I do believe that they could have had a great player had they gone with Boston College's Donovan Azaraku.
02:55Or, you know, somebody of that like Jihad Campbell from Alabama, that would have been a tremendous home run of a pick.
03:03But that's not the route the Lions went. And that doesn't mean that they're not going to go find themselves an edge rusher. Day two comes. We've got a lot of good players still on the board. We'll see what happens. Maybe they move up, try to get some of these guys that fell out of the first round, or maybe they get lucky at 60 and some of these guys fall even more.
03:22We'll see where it goes. But that's how we're feeling about Tyleek Williams right now. We'll see you guys next time.