The Lions moved quickly to trade up for Terrion Arnold, and they unsurprisingly had competition to get it done.
Depending on where you looked, Terrion Arnold was either the No. 1 or No. 2 cornerback in the 2024 draft class. The first 14 picks were offensive players, and 23 offensive players went in the first round overall. So the top defensive players fell, into the laps of teams who had needs on that side of the ball.
Like the Detroit Lions.
Arnold wound up being the second cornerback off the board, after Quinyon Mitchell went at No. 22 to the Philadelphia Eagles. As we know, the Lions traded up from No. 29 to No. 24 to get him when the pivot from the groundwork of another trade up was there for the taking.
General manager Brad Holmes, obviously, did not expect Arnold to fall like he did. It’s still pretty inexplicable that he did, and it was easy for the Lions to part with their remaining 2024 third-round pick to get the trade up done.
Lions unsurprisingly had competition in effort to trade up for Terrion Arnold
It wouldn’t be a revelation to find out other teams were eyeing a trade up for Arnold as he fell down the first round. He has widely projected as a top-15 to top-20 pick, and Holmes suggested he started calling teams picking in the late-teens about a trade up.
Walter Football has confirmed the Lions had competition in their move up to get Arnold.
“I asked one high-ranking NFC personnel man whom he thought was the most shocking player to drop in the first round. He told me it was Terrion Arnold, and that his team tried to move up for him, but was beaten to the punch by Detroit.”
Four NFC teams picked after the Lions took Arnold in the first round: the Green Bay Packers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers. So we can pretty much narrow down the “high-ranking NFC personnel man” as being from one of those teams. It’s also safe to assume there was more than one team looking to move up and get Arnold once he dropped into the 20’s.
But the Lions wanted Arnold badly when he became an option, and they warded off every other team that wanted to trade up for him with an offer the Cowboys couldn’t refuse.
