ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- When Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn was asked how big an issue he believes marijuana usage is when it comes to evaluating the draft board, he gave a pretty frank answer: If marijuana were a reason to pull a player off the board, it would be a much emptier draft board, he said.
"I think you have to take everything into consideration," Quinn said Thursday night. "If we took players off the board because they smoked pot in college or marijuana, like half the board would be gone. Realistically, that's the day and age we live in, and you have to evaluate the risk and the rewards of the player."
Quinn has been open about what he sees as potential red flags. He previously said he has a zero-tolerance policy for domestic violence and gun issues.
Last week, Quinn said figuring out "red flags" and "pink flags" for prospects is one of the last things his staff does before the draft. He said teams monitor social media and ask specifics about potential situations during interviews with prospects and background checks.
"If you have a red flag -- and that's not what we use on our draft card, that's just a generic term that we spoke about -- I think it was at the combine," Quinn said last week. "That's just things that we have to consider, the value of the player compared to the risk involved in taking him. So it's not like these guys are off the board. You've just got to manage the risk and the reward of taking a guy like that."
The marijuana question was asked, in part, because of a video that was posted briefly Thursday on the Twitter account of offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil, who slid to the Miami Dolphins at No. 13. The video showed him smoking a substance through a plastic tube while wearing a gas mask. It was not clear what the substance was.
Quinn said that had Tunsil been available at No. 16, the Lions would have considered taking him.
"Nothing really surprises you because you're really trying to expect the unexpected," Quinn said. "Laremy is a good example of a player that probably fell a little bit later than people had thought of before, and that's something we were prepared to talk about. That's part of the draft."