ALLEN PARK -- In his first few seasons as general manager of the Detroit Lions, Martin Mayhew utilized late-round draft picks as trade chips to acquire veteran talent, a necessity to accelerate the team's rebuilding process.

During 2010 alone, Mayhew acquired cornerback Chris Houston, defensive tackle Corey Williams, guard Rob Sims, quarterback Shaun Hill and defensive end Lawrence Jackson without surrendering more than a fifth-round selection.

Five years later, with a far deeper roster coming off a playoff season, Mayhew would prefer to utilize his late-round picks on young talent instead of swinging a deal for a veteran on the outs with his current club.

"I think early on that was something a lot of times that we did because of the difficulty of signing those guys as free agents," Mayhew said."I think we're in a place now where we have a pretty solid core of quality players and we really want to add some youth to that group. I think the draft is the best way to do that."

Although Detroit didn't do much in free agency this offseason, the franchise hasn't had much trouble luring quality players in recent years, signing Reggie Bush, Glover Quin, Golden Tate and James Ihedigbo, without overspending.

Mayhew has also had some success on the draft's final day, landing players such as Sam Martin, Theo Riddick, Corey Fuller, Tahir Whitehead, and Willie Young in the past five years.

Of course, just last month Mayhew sent a fourth- and fifth-round choice to the Ravens for Haloti Ngata. It's possible the veteran defensive tackle could have ended up a cap casualty in Baltimore, but by dealing for the five-time All-Pro, the Lions strategically avoided a bidding war with other potential suitors.

The Lions recouped a fifth-round pick in a later trade, when they sent defensive end George Johnson to Tampa Bay.

Detroit enters the draft with six selections, one in each round except the fourth. But history suggests Mayhew won't sit tight at the team's scheduled spots, moving up or down when the situations make sense.

"I made the point at the league meeting that we've never started a draft and finished a draft with the same picks, so I think we'll have a different number of picks at the end of this draft," Mayhew said.

"Frequently, we'll be very comfortable that there are going to be a number of players where we are on the board and we'll stay put, or if we feel like our guys are going ahead of us then we'll move up," Mayhew said. "If we feel like there are a number of guys that are behind us that we'd like to have or guys within our range -- if we have 10 players and we can go back eight spots and get one of those guys. So, it really varies depending on what's going on with that particular draft.

Mayhew has been especially aggressive with his second-round choices, moving up three times, including once back into the first round. The team used those picks to draft running backs Jahvid Best, Mikel Leshoure and linebacker Kyle Van Noy.

Best and Leshoure didn't pan out, largely due to injuries, while it's far too early to pass judgement on the former BYU standout who missed half his rookie season with an abdominal injury.

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