The real work happened on the phones. The Lions fleeced their trade partners, turning their picks into a noticeably bigger pile than they started with. It does the job without flash, and the B+ reflects it.

They covered a lot of ground and still skipped edge rusher, which is a strange place to end up. Downs at that cost is the sort of edge that compounds over a roster.

Darius Slay gives the group a proven body among the projects. Every board in the league had Davis lower, and that gap is the story.

In short, they left a little better than they arrived, which is the whole idea.