The Detroit Lions were reportedly rather too excited when it came to their selection of Aidan Hutchinson during the NFL Draft.

As is the case with a lot of things on TV these days, what should be a pretty straightforward process usually gets drawn out into something incredibly long-winded, whether it be for adverts, or just for show to make more of a ‘spectacle’ from it.

And arguably nowhere is that more prominent than at the NFL Draft, where what essentially amounts to a glorified version of picking players on the playground is dragged into a 4-hour extravaganza, not helped by teams having ten minutes to pick their players in the first round.

So for the benefit of the fans, you would hope that teams would want to speed the process up a little bit just so that they don’t get bored, and those who are at the latter end of the round won’t have to wait so long to hear who they are taking.

However, as the Detroit Lions found out, when you do that, whilst the fans might appreciate the gesture, the league does not.

Hot off the presses

According to a report from Peter King, following the selection of Travon Walker by the Jacksonville Jaguars with the number one pick, the Lions were quick off the mark in their attempts to draft Hutchinson with the number two pick.

Hutchinson, having been born in Plymouth, Michigan, played his high school football 25 minutes away from Ford Field and having attended the University of Michigan, made him a prime candidate for the Lions even before his immense talent came into consideration.

However according to King and the Lions, that didn’t go down so well with the NFL:

"We turned the card in so fast the league got mad at us"Detroit Lions official

Breaking the order of things

Obviously the league, and perhaps the TV companies that were broadcasting the draft, wanted to keep some semblance of order and structure throughout the night to keep things moving at a steady pace rather than doing things in an inconsistent pattern.

Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell after being selected as the second overall pick to the Detroit Lions during the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Needless to say that there was enough chaos going on already with the record number of trades that happened on draft night, they didn’t need anything else disrupting the flow of the evening. 

Hopefully teams will take that into consideration next year in Kansas City so as to keep the league in their good graces.