Draft, develop and re-sign: Why Detroit Lions won't budge from roster building approach

INDIANAPOLIS — When the New Orleans Saints went to the NFC championship game in 2018, they did it with a mostly homegrown roster built around a veteran quarterback once cast aside for injury concerns.

And when Dan Campbell, an assistant coach on that Saints team, came to the Detroit Lions three years ago, he found himself paired with a general manager in Brad Holmes who believed in the same draft, develop and re-sign method of team building he had so much success with in New Orleans.

The Lions followed that script to infuse their roster with talent on the way to last year’s NFC title game, and as they try to make the leap to the Super Bowl this year, Campbell said there’s no reason to change.

“You want to be a good team, you have to draft well and then you re-sign those guys,” Campbell said Tuesday at the NFL combine. “I mean, that’s your core. And then you find the right pieces, free agents to fill in with. So I just, we both believe that, so I think you got to be careful.

FIRST BIG STEP: Lions 'in alignment' on Jared Goff's future; upcoming bonus no deadline for new deal

“You want to go spend top dollar on a free agent that’s not your own, you want to know everything about that player before you bring him into your locker room. You can see the tape, all that, but (you’re more willing to) pay top dollar for your own guys that are worthy from production, cause you know everything about them. So it’s just, it’s something that we believe in, it’s something that we’re going to continue to do.”

The Lions project to have more than $50 million in cap space when the 2024 league year opens March 13.

Holmes said Tuesday he was surprised at the more than $30 million increase in the cap from last season and acknowledged the Lions have made “necessary adjustments in our planning and budgeting” to account for the jump.

But for the third time since the season ended, Holmes hinted the Lions will allocate most of that money to re-signing the players that helped them get to this point rather than splurge on shiny new additions in free agency.

“It’s good flexibility to have,” he said. “There’s some advantages there, but again, you still got to be smart.”

STICKING AROUND: Dan Campbell: Ben Johnson 'more than qualified' to be head coach

The Lions signed special teams ace Jalen Reeves-Maybin to a two-year extension Monday that made him the highest-paid core special teams player in the NFL. They could re-up cornerstone players like Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Alim McNeill this offseason, and have other deals to do in the not-too-distant future with players like Penei Sewell and Aidan Hutchinson.

Sewell, St. Brown and McNeill are all eligible for extensions for the first time this offseason, and all those players but Goff were drafted and developed in Detroit.

“As you kind of build the roster and get more stronger in certain areas, you’re process alters a little bit because you can be a little bit more — we’ve always been strategic and selective, but you can even be more selective than you have in the past,” Holmes said. “We’re not quite there yet where Les (Snead) and the (Los Angeles) Rams (where when Holmes worked there), where he really started to be very, very, very selective there. But me and (assistant GM) Ray (Agnew) were just talking about that. We are getting there. We’re getting closer.”

If the Lions want to spend big in free agency this year, they should have no shortage of options who can help their team.

Cornerbacks Jaylon Johnson and L’Jarius Sneed, defensive tackles Chris Jones and Christian Wilkins and edge rushers Brian Burns, Josh Allen and Danielle Hunter are potential impact players at positions of need.

ONE WISH: Dan Campbell says he only has one regret from Lions NFC championship loss

But Campbell said he and Holmes agree it’s usually better to add capable depth players than it is to splurge on top-of-the-market talent.

“Brad and I both believe that depth is important,” Campbell said. “Depth is very important, more so than maybe the this is the guy you can check the box, true starter, but then you’ve got nobody else to follow. We would rather have the depth because this league, everybody gets hurt, and that’s just the nature of it. We’ve gone through it for three years, but it’s very important to us and they’ve got to be the right guys and they’ve got to be players that do, they fit a certain role.”

The Lions won’t be wallflowers in free agency this year.

They have needs at cornerback, pass rush and on the offensive line, where starting guards Jonah Jackson and Graham Glasgow are pending free agents.

But Holmes said he’ll be guided by the draft, develop and re-sign philosophy in whatever he does.

“You know them,” Holmes said. “And it’s not just, ‘Oh, you drafted them and you know them so even if they’re not performing well and they’re not meeting expectations that you just keep them.’ No, it’s that you try your best to acquire the right players through the draft and hopefully the goal is to develop and then once they get to a point where they’re eligible to re-sign, you re-sign them and you feel really, really good about it.

“That’s why we always talk about how selective and strategic we do have to be in free agency because you don’t really know these players … but when you draft and you know your own guys, you feel a lot more comfortable.”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Why Detroit Lions won't budge from roster building approach this year