Detroit Lions' Brad Holmes not interested in Super Bowl 'windows,' wants sustainable success

The Detroit Lions are closer to a Super Bowl than they’ve ever been.

They won 12 games last season for the second time in franchise history. They played for the NFC title, and should have beat the San Francisco 49ers in that game. They did beat the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs in the regular season.

But while some fans and former NFL general managers believe now is the time for the Lions to go all-in and maximize their window of opportunity, Lions GM Brad Holmes insisted Thursday nothing will change with his approach to roster building and this year’s draft.

“I understand the question because you’re like, ‘OK, all right, the roster’s at a certain point. OK, you guys should be contenders headed into the season, so, OK, how do you operate this way?’” Holmes said. “But again, I just think if we just keep improving every single year through doing it through our process, that’s what we’ve been doing and that’s what we’ll continue to do. And I think when you start getting into, ‘Well, we’ve got this window, so we’ve got this and we’ve got to pivot,’ that’s when I think you kind of get into a little bit of trouble.”

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Holmes has built one of the best, most complete rosters in the NFL in his three years as GM, and he’s done it primarily through the draft.

The Lions traded for quarterback Jared Goff at the start of their rebuild and added projected starters Carlton Davis, D.J. Reader and Kevin Zeitler through trades or free agency this offseason, but otherwise have drafted and develop the nucleus of their roster.

Penei Sewell, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Kerby Joseph, Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta.

The Lions pick 29th in next week’s draft, which is 22 spots lower than the first first-round pick Holmes has started a draft with in Detroit. And while he acknowledged he likely won’t land a blue-chip talent comparable to Sewell (the seventh pick of the 2021 draft), Hutchinson (No. 2 in 22) or Gibbs (No. 12 last year, after a trade down) with his first pick this year, Holmes said it’s important to “stick to the same process" nonetheless.

“You got to just get your head around the players,” he said. “And we’ve been doing this long enough to know like, all right, we’re probably not going to be in on some of those (top) guys.”

Holmes has found gems in the middle rounds of his three drafts, and that’s played a huge part in the Lions’ success.

St. Brown, a fourth-round pick in 2021, is one of the best receivers in the NFL, while McNeill and Joseph are key defensive starters who were third-round picks.

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Still, SiriusXM NFL analyst Mark Dominik, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager in 2009-13, said Holmes should consider a bold move up in next week’s draft to acquire another difference-making player.

“I think when you’re at the door and you think you can knock through it, then I think you’ve got to try to swing for it, especially with where they are as a football team,” Dominik said. “I look at them and say be aggressive here. Take your fifths and sixths or take your extra third from Minnesota and go and go get two guys that are going to make a difference for you.

“So if you come out with your first- and second-round pick, but you take Round 3 and move it into your second-round pick or your first-round pick and move it up to pick 23 or 22 or 24, I think you’ve got to go be aggressive because you do have a window that’s wide open and yet you’ve got a Packers team that looks like it’s charging strong and obviously other teams that are still really good in the NFC. So I just don’t think you sit back and play it safe and just let the picks come to you, I think you parlay it up and if you walk out of the draft with five picks instead of seven, I think that’s a good thing for them.”

Holmes has been aggressive in past drafts, making nine draft-day trades, including four moves up specifically for players. In 2022, he jumped 20 spots to take wide receiver Jameson Williams at No. 12 overall without sacrificing a future draft pick.

Last year, Holmes took the opposite approach in Round 1, moving down six spots after the Lions’ top target, Devon Witherspoon, came off the board.

“It’s certainly not a year for them to be trading picks and accumulating picks in 2025,” Dominik said.

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Holmes apprenticed under Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Sneed, who famously authored the “F them picks” philosophy that helped the Rams win a Super Bowl. The Rams have a first-round pick this year for the first time since 2016, when they took Goff No. 1 overall.

It’s possible the Lions get to that point one day under Holmes, but the flip side of chasing one championship then rebuilding on the fly, as the Rams did while making the playoffs last year, is trying to construct something more sustainable.

The Lions have significant contractual investments to make in the coming months and years to Goff, St. Brown, Sewell, Hutchinson and others.

Those contracts typically hinder a team’s ability to retain some of its starting-level talent, and in one regard make hitting on draft picks — and having the cost-controlled contracts that come with them — more important.

That’s part of why Holmes subscribes to the talent-over-need philosophy.

“Really, with where the roster’s now, I actually think you even have more flexibility to not be anchored into (drafting) a need,” Holmes said. “We’ve always said best player, but it’s even more emphasized now.”

And that’s why, as badly as he wants to win a Super Bowl, Holmes insists the Lions won't pivot from what made them contenders in 2024.

“I don’t really base it off of windows, really,” he said. “It’s just how much of an impactful player do you want to get?”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why you can't count on Detroit Lions going 'all in' in 2024 NFL draft