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The Lions think they got first-round value from their second-round pick.

Lions G.M. Bob Quinn said this morning on PFT Live that Alabama defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson, whom the Lions selected with the 46th overall pick, was a player the Lions were assuming would be off the board well before their second-rounder came up.

“I was a little bit surprised. He was a player we talked about and we kind of thought he’d go somewhere between our two picks — we were sitting there at 16 and then at 46,” Quinn said. “We felt really good about the grade we had on him and at the end of the day we thought he’d go somewhere from 17 to 34 would be the range, and we were very fortunate he was there at 46.”

Robinson seemed surprised, too; among the 25 players who were invited to the draft, Robinson was the second-to-last drafted. Only his fellow defensive tackle Jarran Reed at No. 49 overall was drafted later.

With Robinson and the rest of the rookie class in the fold, Quinn thinks the Lions should be better than the team he inherited.

“I expect improvement. That’s the one thing I expect,” Quinn said. “I expect us to be a competitive team at the top of the NFC North.”

The Lions have never been at the top of the NFC North; the last time they won their division was in 1993, when it was still the NFC Central.