2015 NFL Mock Draft: With The Twenty-Third Pick, The Detroit Lions Select...

A surprising amount of very good - if not elite - talent is still on the board in the early 20s of this mock draft. BostonianToro and the Detroit Lions have decided to capitalize on such a rare opportunity to bolster their already stacked collection of offensive weapons.

With the 23rd pick of the 2015 BRB Mock Draft, the Detroit Lions select Melvin Gordon (RB--Wisconsin).

I have been patiently watching the mock to see what will fall our way by the 23rd pick.

Initially my target of the draft was going to be defense (I tend to lean this way in the middle of rounds), as we lost Ndonkeykong Suh, Nick Fairley and George Johnson. However, we plugged the gap with Haloti Ngata and I think that Ziggy Ansah will have a huge season for us this year, so I kind of felt like we would be okay. I then went and looked at the numbers. Allowed points by opposing team: Ranked 3rd.  Allowed yards by other team: Ranked 2nd. We were 3rd in interceptions, and 1st in defense against the rush. I think we are in pretty good shape even if we let that slide a little.

I then looked at the offensive numbers and one thing RUSHED out at me (see what I did there?). We were ranked 22nd in scoring and 19th in total yards, while on the passing side, we were 1st and 12th respectively for attempts and yardage. Where it got dismal was the rushing stats: 25th in attempts, 28th in yards, 29th in yards per attempt. To fix the Lions, we needed to upgrade the run game.

Reggie Bush is gone (and last year he was nothing like his 2013 season of 1,500 combined yards), and Joigue Bell does not have the umph to carry the load on his shoulders as a No. 1 back. He had a 223 carry season, averaging 3.9 per carry, for a total of 860 yards. The guy we have sitting second, Theo Riddick, only touched the ball 20 times last year! To make this team become contenders, an upgrade in the  run game is desperately needed.

This is where Melvin Gordon comes in. Melvin Gordon won the Doak Walker Award as the nation’s best running back while amassing the second most single season rushing yards in FBS history with 2,587, second only to only the best RB in Detroit history (and arguably some might say in NFL history) the one, the only, the  GREAT BARRY SANDERS from 1988!

Gordon set school records with twelve 100-yard games and six 200-yard games, He is tall, strong and can hit the holes, where he has impressive burst speed from a dead stop. He was a combine top performer in the 40  for RBs at 4.52 seconds (and 3 other categories). When you look at his film, Gordon is shifty, agile, a great hurdler and has feet that always keep moving. He kind of reminds me of a very tall pinball the way he bounces off of defenders, only to find another hole somewhere else. The main downside I see in Gordon is ball security, and with Matt Stafford throwing interceptions like Oprah giving away cars, that needs to be his primary focus after learning the offense: HOLD ONTO THE BALL!

Where does this leave the Lions after acquiring Gordon? We still have Golden Tate (the man with the Velcro hands) and Megatron, and maybe Eric Ebron if he steps up, being prime targets for Stafford. They should draw the safeties to help cover them, and that will prevent teams from stacking the box.  A runner like Gordon will be able to exploit a seven-man front and punch for the holes, hopefully bringing this offense into the top 10 across the stats board. Will this be the second coming of Barry Sanders? I would certainly like to hope so!

With that, bt20 and the Arizona Cardinals are now on the clock.  That picks is due in by 7:00 p.m. CDT tonight.

Recapping the first round of the 2015 BRB Mock Draft so far...

TIMING FOR SUBMITTING REMAINING PICKS: