The Lions executive couldn’t help but joke at Green Bay’s expense
The 2025 NFL Draft hasn’t even started in Green Bay, but Detroit Lions executives are already lobbying to bring the event back to their city. Team president Rod Wood took a shot at the Lions’ NFC North rival while making his case for the draft to return to Detroit.
Wood recently spoke at the Detroit Economic Club, and he couldn’t help but take a dig at the Packers. With Detroit setting a draft attendance record last year, Wood said Green Bay is looking at another third-place finish.
“There’s no way Green Bay will come close. They’ll finish second, or as I said offstage, they’ll finish third like they did last year,” Wood said, per Front Office Sports.
Wood was prodding the Packers for finishing third in the division, which the Lions won. Wood went on to say that it may be a few years before Detroit is given consideration for another draft, but when that time comes, he thinks it will be hard for the NFL to deny the city’s success.
“I’m trying to get the NFL to consider bringing it back, because I don’t think they’ll ever top it,” Wood said. “I’ve mentioned to [NFL commissioner] Roger [Goodell], ‘How could you ever do better than this?’ I think it’s probably going to be a few years from now. A lot of cities are bidding on it. … It’ll be competitive. But I know when they reconsider Detroit, whenever that is, it’s not going to be tough for the league to support bringing it back here.”
The 2024 NFL Draft was a rousing success with more than 700,000 fans gathering in Detroit to see their favorite teams shape their future. The economic impact of that tourism explosion was reported to be roughly $160 million.
We’ll see how Green Bay compares to its division rival later this week when the first round kicks off on Thursday night.
