Who is Jahlani Tavai? We find out with help from a Hawaii football beat writer."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Detroit Lions NewsDetroit Lions NotesDetroit Lions AnalysisDetroit Lions TransactionsDetroit Lions Game RecapsNFL Draft5 QuestionsNFL Draft ProfilesGetting to know Jahlani Tavai with Hawaii Warrior WorldNew White Amani Oruwariye Jersey ,105commentsWho is Jahlani Tavai? We find out with help from a Hawaii football beat writer.EDTShareTweetShareShareGetting to know Jahlani Tavai with Hawaii Warrior WorldStephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY SportsThe second round was quite the round for Lions fans. They had visions of sugar plums and Amani Oruwariye dancing in their heads. But they would not get sugar plums. They would not get Amani Oruwariye (yet). They got Hawaii linebacker Jahlani Tavai. They got to say “who?”Lions twitter exploded with displeasure. Everyone was sure of a few things. The Lions picked another bustThis was Teez Tabor all over againThis is Ikaika Alama-Francis all over againThe Lions don’t care what any of us thinkThe Lions could have got Tavai in the seventh roundAll of those things might be true. The fourth one is definitely true. The other four options might be proven wrong in the end. Who knows? I believe the most common knock on Tavai is that many hadn’t even heard of him at the time. Believe me, I hadn’t either. That’s why I needed to go find out more. So I went to Jeremy Reisman and asked him to send me to Hawaii to find out. He said sure, but he did not make with the plane ticket. So I wound up having to just send an email. I got in touch with Hawaii sports beat writer Stephen Tsai of Hawaii Warrior World and the Honolulu Star Advertiser. He started with some background info, noting that Tavai actually played rugby in high school and was recruited as a nose tackle by Hawaii, but 250 pounder never quite filled out weight wise. Tavai also had a pretty decent career at Hawaii playing all over the defense and special teams. “He had more than 100 tackles during his sophomore and junior years,” Tsai told us. “As a sophomore, he was mostly a rush end. He played middle linebacker as a junior. Last year, his senior season, UH went with a 4-2-5 alignment. Tavai played middle, outside linebacker Frank Ragnow Jersey , stand-up nose, edge setter and rush end. As a freshman, he aligned as basically a rush end. In the 2015 regular-season finale, punter Rigo Sanchez (now with the Colts) had to take care of a family emergency in California. Tavai was used as a punter that game.”Looks like Tavai is something of a jack of all trades. But as far what he’ll do in Detroit, the belief is the Matt Patricia will use him in something of a Dont’a Hightower-like role. But there are, admittedly, some red flags. Jahlani is coming off a shoulder injury that required surgery, and he had a run in with police early in 2018. But no charges were filed and some argue Tavai actually did the right thing. “They were at a nightclub and a teammate of Jahlani got into an argument with another guy and that guy bumped into the teammate’s girlfriend,” Tsai explained. “The two went outside and began to fight and Jahlani removed the guy off his teammate and was arrested along with the two others. No charges were filed.” Lions general manager Bob Quinn noted that the team weighed the incident, but after talking with Tavai multiple times throughout the draft process Jarrad Davis Jersey , they had no concerns about it.“I think a lot of people in this room would’ve stepped in and tried to do the right thing as well,” Quinn said. “So, it was unfortunate. He made a mistake, and we are totally fine with him character wise, one thousand percent.”As far as strengths, Tsai says Tavai is a “a 250-pounder, and he can hit. As a junior, he had 89 runs stops in the tackle box. He also can help on the edge as a stand-up or hand-in-dirt pass rusher. He’s a very good open-field tackler.”But his weakness is that he doesn’t have very much cover experience due to Hawaii’s five defensive back scheme. That should cause a little worry since coverage skills is something the Lions linebacker who are already on the roster struggle with. It’s hard to know what Tavai will turn out to be for the Lions. What’s been confirmed over and over again is that he’s a great guy and a hard worker. There was clearly something about him that had the Lions excited on Friday night. We’ll have to wait to see what that is. There’s an awful lot of smoke around the Lions’ 8th overall pick being up for sale."Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn hasn’t exactly been the wheeling-and-dealing type in the NFL Draft over his three years on the job. In his first ever draft, he didn’t make a single trade despite having ten picks in 2016. The next year, Quinn only made a single trade T.J. Hockenson Detroit Lions Jersey , moving down in the third round to pick up a fourth rounder. Last season, Quinn was at his busiest. He not only traded up in the second round, but he traded back into the fourth round using 2019 draft assets.Despite a relative sparse history of trading in the draft, expectations are high that the Lions will be active during draft weekend this year. With Quinn openly saying his team is open for business to move down in the first round, and rumors about dealing with the Atlanta Falcons still burning hot, USA Today lists the Lions as one of the top five teams most likely to trade their pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. And author Michael Middlehurst-Schwartz has an idea of how they may do it.“Finding a team antsy enough to leap ahead of the Broncos at No. 10 to grab a passer could be the key to Quinn’s vision materializing,” he wrote.With so much smokescreening going on at this time of year, it’s hard to imagine all of these rumors are true. However, there has been an awfully large amount of smoke around Detroit and their desire to trade down this year. Could all these rumors actually materialize on draft day? Tori Petry of DetroitLions.com has a nice recap of what Lions players were up to this offseason prior to reporting for offseason training on Monday. Speaking of offseason training, the Lions shared a photo album of players arriving for work on Monday. Some notable players in the photos were newly-added Justin Coleman T.J. Hockenson Jersey 2019 , Trey Flowers, and Rashaan Melvin. There were no pictures of Matthew Stafford, and the team declined to comment on whether he attended (remember: his wife has a brain tumor and could be getting surgery this week.)In case you were wondering, the 2019 Snacks’ Snacks Madness tournament has crowned its champion. Congratulations to the rightful winner, Oatmeal Creme Pies: Read it if you dare: Nate Atkins breaks down the film and specs of Iowa tight end T.J. Hockenson, a potential first-round pick for the Detroit Lions. Now that the players are together again, it’s time for some serious trash talking. Quandre Diggs was the first to land a haymaker: If you read one thing today, it should be this: Chris Burke of The Athletic traveled alongside Lions head coach Matt Patricia to Alabama, where Patricia was asked to speak about killing bad football. It’s rare we get an in-depth piece on Patricia like this and Burke does a fantastic job.