Laughingstock Lions Hold All the Cards

We still don't know who the Detroit Lions will choose as the first pick in Saturday's NFL draft, and it will be a couple years, at least, before we know whether that first overall pick was a wise choice or a bust. But we already know one thing for sure: The Lions have done a good job of using the local media to send up smokescreens about their intentions.

Looking back at what has been written out of Detroit in the last three months, it's clear that the Lions are feeding local beat reporters information designed to create negotiating leverage with the agents for the top players in the draft (Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford, Wake Forest linebacker Aaron Curry and Baylor left tackle Jason Smith), and to make other teams consider trading up for the Lions' choice.

From the Lions' perspective, that's a smart move: It's always better, in any negotiation, to have the other side think you have other options. So if the Lions are negotiating with Stafford's agent, they want him to think they might walk away from the negotiating table and select Curry.

Which is why stories like the one written by Tom Kowalski at MLive.com on Wednesday are perfect misinformation for the Lions: Sources tell Kowalski that the Lions have a deal in place with Curry, Kowalski writes it, and Stafford's agent (the Lions hope) starts to think he needs to give a little bit in negotiations if he doesn't want his client to lose out on being the first pick in the draft.

Kowalski followed Wednesday's report with an article Thursday morning quoting an unnamed source as saying that the Lions "aren't bluffing" when they say they'll negotiate with both Stafford and Curry and draft the one who accepts the better contract offer. But the thing about bluffing is that it only works when people think you aren't doing it. And so it makes perfect sense that the Lions would get some unnamed source to go to a reporter and say the team isn't bluffing. It makes less sense that anyone would find that unnamed source believable.

And, of course, this stuff about the Lions choosing between Curry and Stafford is not always the message the Lions have been sending out: Last month, Kowalski wrote a column about how the Lions were going to choose a left tackle (either Smith or Virginia's Eugene Monroe) instead of either Curry or Stafford. Kowalski wrote at the time that everything he was hearing from everyone in the organization was pointing in that direction.

Kowalski didn't seem to realize, however, that when it comes to the NFL draft, everything you hear from everyone in the organization is a smokescreen. NFL teams aren't in the business of giving beat writers candid assessments of their draft plans. NFL teams are in the business of giving beat writers what they want everyone else to think are candid assessments of their draft plans. Those are usually two very different things.

I wrote in January that everyone I talked to in Tampa at the Super Bowl thought the Lions were going to select Stafford, and I still think that Stafford is the most likely first overall pick. But the bottom line is that you can't believe anything you read -- from Kowalski, from me or from any other reporter -- that is based on what NFL sources say about draft plans.

The Lions haven't played very good football recently, but in the last few months they've done a great job of playing the media.