“It’s another exciting class with some of the strengths really being along the defensive line, particularly the edge rushers,” Jeremiah said Thursday.
The Lions return All-Pro Aidan Hutchinson, who had a career-high 14.5 sacks last season and is one of the best edge players in the NFL, but they could lose Al-Quadin Muhammad and his 11.0 sacks from last season as he’s headed toward unrestricted free agency. Josh Paschal and Ahmed Hassanein are under contract next season on the edge, but Detroit could certainly look to free agency or the draft – or both – to help supplement the other edge spot opposite Hutchinson.
Jeremiah said the edge talent is so deep in this draft that teams will be able to get starters well into Day 2 if they go another route in the first round.
“I think it’s a really good group,” Jeremiah said of this year’s edge class, with Reese, David Bailey (Texas Tech) and Rueben Bain Jr. (Miami) his top three.
Jeremiah also touched on a number of other topics, as follows –
On Detroit potentially taking an OT at No. 17: “Sounds like they’ve been doing a lot of homework on free agent tackles,” Jeremiah said of Detroit. “We’ll see what happens with (Taylor) Decker, but it feels like there could definitely be a need there.
“When you’re looking at pick No. 17, Monroe Freeling (Georgia) makes a lot of sense there as someone who’s kind of got the excellent size. There’s some torque and physicality and aggressiveness in the way he plays.
“I like Blake Miller (Clemson) a lot. I would imagine the fact he’s got 54 starts and is a high school wrestler with 35-inch arms; he’s going to bench over 30 (reps) and probably jump over 30 (inches). I would imagine that would be popular and highly thought of in that room for the kind of stuff (Detroit) values. Those two guys to me would make a lot of sense.”