How can Lions take the next step?
Mike Florio and Chris Simms discuss Brad Holmes' comments on talent acquisition and break down how the Lions can improve after a disappointing 2025 season.
Video Transcript
The Detroit Lions had their pre-draft press conference on Monday.
They hold the 17th pick in round one of the 2026 draft.
They never dreamed they'd be picking so high after finishing nine and eight and last in the NFC North.
Here is Brad Holmes, who's been the GM of the team for four or five years now, since coming over from the Rams as the, He was the director of college scouting there.
Here he is, is, on whether he'd adopt the same philosophy as his former boss, Les Snead, when it comes to trading picks for players or whatever else you can get for them.
Organizationally, if there was a player out there, obviously not a quarterback, who you thought could put you over the top, even though there's no guarantee you'd get to the Super Bowl, would you, for lack of a better term, F the picks, go all in, whatever word you wanna use, if you, if you guys felt that there was a guy out there that would, in your mind, pretty close guarantee you'd get to the Super Bowl?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, if it's the right guy, yeah.
I mean, you guys know me.
I, I mean, I feel like you guys get mad at me sometimes.
I, w- I do that too much sometimes.
But no, I- if we, we have that kind of conviction for a player, absolutely, we're gonna, we're gonna go and get him.
And look, every team has different beliefs, Chris, about players, and they have strong convictions about some that others don't, just like Patrick Mahomes, just like Andy Reid did in 2017, jumping from the low 20s all the way to number 10 to cut the line in front of Sean Payton, who would've taken him, with Drew Brees in the room, with a group of friends.
Yeah.
And Payton had to say to Mickey Loomis "Hey, go tell Drew we, uh- Yeah, we might draft, uh- we gonna lock him in here we might draft Patrick Mahomes right here."
We gonna lock him in here.
This might be his last year touring the, facility with friends.
Seriously.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, but, a- a- all, you know, in all seriousness with Detroit, I, you know, that, that, that group up there, they're not afraid of anything.
We know that.
The, they're the kneecap biting, Detroit Lions, Dan Campbell.
They're, they're not afraid to make moves.
I mean, what do you gotta do?
All you gotta do is Yeah, maybe they haven't made huge trades or whatever, but they've, they've made risky moves that's for sure.
I mean, hey, taking Jahmyr Gibbs.
"Oh, you c- can't take Jahmyr Gibbs at number 12.
That's insane.
He's not in the same class as Bijan Robinson."
Eh, I don't know.
he's definitely one of the top two or three running backs in football.
Jack Campbell, that was too early too.
Same draft.
You're gonna take him at 18?
Yeah, screw you, he works.
He fits their culture.
They do what they want that way.
So, they're bold there.
They, they know that, and they got a good football team, and I'll be interested to see what they do with the 17 pick of the draft.
Like you said, I don't think they expected to be drafting there.
They're as good of a team as we've seen picking at 17 in quite some time because I still go, "Wait, they're 17, and they're in the Super Bowl window," and that's rare that you kinda say that.
That doesn't match up.
And you look at their team, and you go, there's not a lot of needs.
I mean, maybe an offensive tackle 'cause Taylor Decker's gone, right?
Need another pass rusher opposite Aidan Hutchinson.
After that, damn, they're pretty good almost everywhere.
So that's where you look at Detroit, and it'll be interesting to see what their approach is in round one here.
I said four or five years for Holmes.
This is year six, and they've done well.
They've done well with their draft picks, and they've had extra picks.
When, when the Rams have said, "F them picks," the Lions have said, "We'll pluck them picks."
And they've, they've m- they've maximized the haul.
And, you know, for, for what a scratch-off lottery ticket industry it is, they've done better than worse- Definitely with their high-profile picks.
You look at that group right there, and I would go, they hit it outta the park with everybody except Terrion Arnold right there.
Everybody else has gone Wait, Aidan Hutchinson, one of the best pass rushers in football.
Jahmyr Gibbs, we talked about, best running back in football.
Jameson Williams, I mean, he's as m- maybe the most explosive deep threat in football.
Penei Sewell might be the best tackle in football.
Tyleik Williams was really good as a rookie last year, being a run-stopping defensive tackle.
So yeah, they've done an incredible job building a football team there in Detroit.
They haven't made it about one guy.
They have built a roster, and I think that was part of why Jared Goff flourished and everything because it just It's an incredible team and attitude and culture they got there in Detroit.
How much longer do you think Goff's gonna be the quarterback of the Lions?
Well, results are I mean, he's, he's, he's a guy that I look at to go, one, I don't think he's gonna lose his arm, Mike.
I think he's got one of those motions in a arm where I'd go, it's still gonna be powerful.
He's big.
His game is not predicated on movement anyway, so him losing a step, who gives a damn if, you know, you didn't really have a step to begin with in that way?
Not trying to be disrespectful.
But yeah, I don't think the c- the, the skills are gonna decline in a way where we're gonna go, "Oh gosh, it's time to move on."
It's just gonna be, "Hey, can they get over the hump?
Can they win some of these big games?"
You know?
"Can he play big in those big games?
Do they get tired if they tired of him if they can't quite get over the hump with him, even though we know that city loves him?"
But I don't see the end coming anytime soon, to, to be honest with you, Mike.
When you, when you are, are, are knocking softly on the door every year, there, there is a fatigue that sets in.
Yeah.
At some point, the fan base will say, "If we're ever gonna get the thing we're trying to get, we have to, we have to upgrade some way, somehow."
And no quarterback is immune from that.
At some point, you've gotta deliver.
You've gotta You have to deliver the Super Bowl berth.
You don't have to deliver the Super Bowl win, but you gotta deliver the Super Bowl berth at some point.
And I think that there's a shelf life there.
We don't know what it is, but it's there, and you only get one opportunity a year.
You know, D- Josh Allen has not and will not That's the thing.Certain quarterbacks are so good that you're gonna keep running it back with the guy because it's not him, it's the people around him.
It's, it's everybody else, exactly.
In Detroit, it's the flip side.
It's like, yeah, they kinda got everything else.
Like, could you imagine the Lions with Josh Allen?
No.
Could you- It, it wouldn't be fair could you freaking imagine?
Right.
With the Lions, with Josh Allen, with Lamar Jackson, with Joe Burrow, with Patrick Mahomes, they, they'd have won three in a row.
Yeah, yeah.
It, it's, you know The I'd, I'd argue that same thing with the, the Philadelphia Eagles, and maybe more than that in a row.
I mean, it, it, it's yeah.
But yeah, to your point, Jared Goff is really good, but Jared Goff doesn't give you the ability like the other guys do of, "Wait, we're not playing our best football today.
Jared Goff will carry us through here with making backyard plays and doing that."
And I think we saw that, you know, again, maybe the, the Washington divisional playoff game.
"Wait, the defense isn't playing good.
We don't got our stuff today.
We gotta, we gotta carry the squad.
Oh, we threw four interceptions."
So yeah, I think that's still a, a, a question of Jared Goff is, can he carry you through those type of moments?
And then we know, again, if Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson lost a 17-point lead in the NFC championship game, and this is what drives me crazy about quarterbacking and, and the different like, "Oh, well, it's okay for him to blow the lead, but him, we're never gonna let him forget about it for the rest of his life.
We're gonna tell him and remind him every morning."
And yeah, if one of those did that, yeah, they, they'd be eviscerated.
But yet it's because Jared Goff had a low bar of expectations at the time that we're let it go for that being that.
So yeah, he's really good, we know that.
I do think they can get to a Super Bowl with Jared Goff, I do.
But they've been beat by injury bug, and then he has not played his best in some big moments and that's, you know, what's been holding them back.
All right.
How would you characterize their Super Bowl window based upon these highly specific options?
Okay.
Wide open, mostly open, halfway open, mostly closed, or fully closed?
Okay.
Where would you put the- Ooh the, the, the meter?
I think it's I, I, I mean, I- I'm gonna say mostly open.
Wide open was two years ago and the year before that.
That was like, gosh, they might be the best team in football.
There's no doubt about it.
They might be the best team.
Now, it's like, hey, they're really good.
They're at the top of the list still, but there's some other teams that they're, they're, they're not You can't just go, "Oh, they're definitely one of the two or three best."
Not anymore.
So yeah, it's mostly open.
It's not wide open.
I'm gonna say it's halfway open.
Okay.
They were last place last year.
Yeah.
And they lost their way post Ben Johnson.
They did.
Right?
Yeah, you're right about that.
And they Offensively, they're, they're gonna have to show me that they have figured out how to deal with the Brian Flores defense.
I, I mean, I think that was one of the more significant and overlooked games of the year, even though it was widely watched on Netflix, the Christmas game, when the Vikings, who were done.
It was an exhibition game.
It was pre-season to the 2026 pre-season.
The Lions went in there desperate to keep their playoffs ho- hopes a- a- alive, and the Vikings beat them.
Yeah.
So- Well- that, that was- Yeah, that was a big deal impressive for the Vikings, but depressing for the Lions.
Well, and, and let's not forget the first m- match up with Brian Flores and the Vikings was the whole, "Wait.
Oh, the Vikings might have just showed something.
If you kind of blitz and pressure Goff up the middle, uh-oh, things change."
And that kind of started the stretch of the Lions winning o- or losing to the Vikings, then winning, then losing, then winning, then losing, then winning, then losing, then losing, then losing.
I mean, so yeah, there was something there.
And you're right about the Ben Johnson thing.
People are gonna look at it and go, "Well, their offense was still number five in football."
But it's like you and me would say, "Go, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit."
It wasn't really.
And when it needed to be explosive and awesome like it was in the years before with Ben Johnson, like we saw the Bears be in the fourth quarters of games and whatever else, they weren't able to do that, and that's where, yeah, it felt different.
It felt like a foregone conclusion the years before.
You were just like, "Well, Detroit's gotta go down the field here right now.
Ben Johnson, Jared Goff, those weapons, they're gonna go down."
Last year, you were a little like, "Oh, I, I don't know.
We'll see what happens."
And you're right.
You're totally right.
That, that changed the outlook of the franchise
