That is why I think they should draft Tua and let him sit and fully recover from his hip surgery for a year. The Lions could trade Stafford after the 2020 season and have Tua fully recovered and ready to take over at QB in 2021. No player the Lions could draft at 3 would have the same long term positive effect on the Lions organization than Tua if he is able to fully recover from his hip surgery.Matthew Stafford signed a 5 year, $135,000,000 contract with the Detroit Lions, including a $50,000,000 signing bonus, $92,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $27,000,000. In 2020, Stafford will earn a base salary of $7,800,000 and a workout bonus of $500,000, while carrying a cap hit of $21,300,000 and a dead cap value of $32,000,000.
Detroit would probably have to trade Stafford and make it extremely attractive for the other team to unload him. GMs generally don't want to take on cap hits of that sort of magnitude. While others speculate, most likely scenario is that Detroit keeps Matthew Stafford at least for another year.
If Stafford was in his 20’s and not coming off a major back injury, drafting another player at three would make sense. Yet at age 32 and coming off a major back injury, drafting Tua for the long term would appear to be the best draft pick the Lions could make in this years draft.
I know the Tua fans on here don’t want to even think that another team drafting before the Dolphins might draft Tua but if they think he is the next great NFL QB, why can’t they accept that the Lions, Redskins, or even the Giants just might view him as their long term answer at the QB position too.