Brad Holmes’ Is Built For His Version Of “All-In”
Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
The Detroit Lions’ one-and-done in the postseason doesn’t erase how close this team is. Even after losing both coordinators to other head coaching gigs, the roster is largely intact and head coach Dan Campbell is still running the show.
Being so close has many pondering why the Lions don’t go big with an all-in move. Instead, general manager Brad Holmes appears to be taking a different route to glory. Detroit has hit on one high draft pick after another in recent seasons. Penei Sewell in 2021. Aidan Hutchinson and Jameson Williams in 2022. Jahmyr Gibbs, Jack Campbell, Sam LaPorta, and Brian Branch in 2023.
The list doesn’t stop there. Holmes and the rest of the brain trust have done an incredible job of identifying talent and going with their belief of taking the best player on the board instead of drafting for need. It’s worked out swimmingly. So well, in fact, that the Lions will have a difficult time retaining all the talent they have hit on with these draft classes as the years carry along.
Detroit doesn’t have a lot of holes on its roster, though the idea of adding another premier edge rusher like Myles Garrett to tag team with Hutchinson could take it to the next level. But don’t expect a move like that with the Lions.
Holmes, while speaking at the NFL Combine, doesn’t see it happening. When asked if the Lions could afford to add another star pass rusher, Holmes simply said, “Probably not.”
“Those guys are hard to acquire and it’s hard to keep them financially,” Holmes said. “Again, we have one that’s due for an extension and we’ve already kind of gotten to the planning stages about him already. And so when you talk about adding another one, it’s like, ‘Well, all right, can you financially add another one?’ Because you want to add the other one on top of everything else that you have, and that makes it tough.”
Wanting to make all-in move for the here and now is always enticing and tempting. Normally, picks are lottery tickets, and it’s always safer (and faster) for a team to trade some of the future to bring in a proven producer. But with how the Lions have operated in the draft, at this point, it’s safer to keep building with cheap talent. The Lions are already all-in, they don’t need to force the issue by sacrificing draft capital.
Holmes went on to talk about the depth of the 2025 Draft class on Tuesday. “It’s a lot deeper than what we can remember, at least in the past couple of years, and that’s both inside and out,” the GM glowed.
Trading for a Garrett or a Maxx Crosby could be the final piece… or it might not. There’s no guarantee and as much as proven veterans are viewed as the safe play, they’re always an unknown. Is this the year they fall off? Get injured? What if they turn out to be a poor fit in the system? Just like any draft pick, you can never be 100% certain.
Factoring in everything else with Detroit, and knowing that it will already have to make tough decisions once their current rookie-scale contract players need raises, the draft will continue to be a lifeline for Holmes.
“We’re at the juncture with our roster right now that we have identified a lot of young core pieces that we want to keep around, and unfortunately that’s the tough part: you have to make decisions on other players contractually that you might not be able to keep that you want to keep,” Holmes said Tuesday. “You just can’t have everybody.”
That’s simply the reality of Detroit’s situation — they must continue to bank on hitting home runs in the draft as their pathway to a title.
The Philadelphia Eagles just hoisted the Lombardi Trophy, and while they hit on recent draft picks, additions like Saquon Barkley, Zack Baun, and Mekhi Becton in free agency, as well as a trade for A.J. Brown, helped push them over the top. Now, with all the resources the Eagles already have tied up, they will have an incredibly difficult time finding the means to re-sign Baun and Becton. It’s the nature of the beast. Parity is a rubber band that sends would-be dynasties back to Earth.
Detroit is taking a different route that heavily focuses on drafting a developing talent while adding on the margins in free agency. That can work, too. There isn’t just one successful method in the NFL, and every team has to have a blend of draft picks that pan out and free agent additions that impact the team greatly.
Holmes’ version will continue to lean on the draft, and that’s just fine. With the Lions being so close, it raises the anxiety levels of those of us who want to see them reach the top of the mountain. One big trade could make it, and flags fly forever. But that same trade could also break everything and crumble the financial picture for the team for years.
Holmes wants to hedge against that downside, and that means keeping the focus on the players already in-house.
“That stuff starts adding up and you have to make some tough decisions. We’ve already started a lot of that work in terms of the preparation, planning, forecasting, because whatever you do this year is going to impact financially the next year after, as well, so it’s a lot of work to be done on that front.”
Detroit butters its bread through the draft, and that doesn’t seem to be changing. Just because the Lions have an eye towards the draft as their primary way of improving the roster doesn’t mean they’re not all-in. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
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