In the 2025 NFL season, the NFC North was the only division in which all teams had crossed the 8-win threshold. Even the team ranked lowest, the Detroit Lions, had a 9-8 record, tied with the Minnesota Vikings. Speaking of the Lions, a Super Bowl-caliber team failed to qualify for the playoffs last season.
Detroit was an offensive powerhouse, ranking 8th in the PFSN NFL Offense Impact metrics, with an 80.5 score. But they struggled defensively. And now, GM Brad Holmes speaks on the whole draft process: what’s a make-or-break decision.
Lions GM Brad Holmes Pinpoints Draft Challenges Citing Positional-Need Trap
In a Pre-Draft Press Conference on April 13, 2026, Holmes pointed out that what actually leads teams to pick the less suitable players from a ready roster of rookies at their disposal.
The reporter asked Holmes, “The drafting challenge for you early on, you could take anybody, any position you needed, everything. It’s gotten more specific, and I assume more difficult as it goes on. Do you feel at this stage even more pressure to target what appears to be specific needs?”
Holmes said, “Not really. Actually, I think sometimes you can get in trouble by doing that, just because you might start to reach for a certain player because you feel like you need that position. And you never want to feel that way when you select a player.”
The GM then spoke about the lost opportunity of recruiting a player: “You pass up a really good player that you liked even more, but there is a question mark on your roster. So you just go ahead, and you get that player that you weren’t as excited about.”
Holmes emphasized how toiling it is for him to do so. He said, “I know for me it’s hard to sleep at night when you do that, when you don’t really get the player that you really, really wanted because you reach for a need. So you already reached for a player that you weren’t as fired up about, but he fit a certain position.”
He then dwelt upon a very important question. “What if the player shows or demonstrates the reason why you weren’t as fired up about him?” Well, Holmes admitted that things could go south.
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“So now you’ve reached for the guy, and now the guy’s not even performing up to standards. The same reason why you had reservations about him, now you’re really in trouble. So that’s why I think you have to be careful with that,” he said.
With so much awaiting to happen during the drafts, the Lions have the no. 17 and no. 50 picks from the first and second rounds, respectively. They also have 7 more picks, starting in round 4. But the team needs a defensive revolution at this point. Will Holmes manage this feat?
