And there's the DJ Reader on the D-Line. Another team friendly 2 year/28 mil deal with only 9 guaranteed. He's almost certainly a significant upgrade and if it doesn't work he's gone next year. I think you still want to add a starting capable guard, even if it's a bottom tier starter. Then you can develop a replacement, or just snag one in the first round and you're set.

Another really really solid signing. You have to give a lot of credit to the front office for making good deals, but Campbell deserves a bunch too -- you have guys wanting to come play in Detroit which is such a change.

Dunno if they'll add another OL now or just wait since they tendered Awosika. If someone viable is out there and they can bring them in on a prove it deal or something without huge guaranteed money, sure, but otherwise they'll have other opportunities.

Definitely think OL will be a draft priority, otherwise if they find guys they like at DE, CB, WR or elsewhere they might get a little priority.

I guess we'll settle for a Pro Bowler (Zietler). Holy COW our o line best in the league if Ragnow can stay healthy.

If you'd like to drool a little, got this from the Lions subreddit, 22m analysis on how DJ Reader is a game changing addition to the d-line.

Eventually Holmes will make a dumb move, right? They can’t all be bangers, can they?

What Brad has been really good at it is not making any moves that if they don't work would hurt his ability to fix the team later. Short term contracts. Good value deals. In 2022 our starting CBs were Okudah and AO. It was bad. He brought in Sutton (if you haven't heard the news on him, google it. Not great. Likely done as a Lion), CJGJ, and Moseley. Moseley and CJGJ never played and Sutton was underwhelming. But the CB room was still slightly improved and it didn't cost any draft capital or significant cap space, so they went to the fuggin NFCCG despite getting poor to no production from three big FA gets.

Based on the contracts being handed out around the league I don't think Brad missed out any major FA gets. He hasn't signed any superstar FAs to big long term deals. More often than not those guys underperform that contract. See: Trey Flowers. Good player. But not as good as his deal, which really hurt the salary cap. Brad hasn't made those kinds of moves.

Cam Sutton gone. That was faster than I thought.

Headline for a piece by Carlos Monarrez in today's Freep: "Lions can't afford to waste their top pick on an interior offensive lineman". (I don't subscribe so I can't read the article, but pretty sure the headline speaks for itself).

Uhhhh, okay.

Thankfully Brad Holmes pays zero attention to the opinions of dumbass local columnists and will do whatever he thinks is correct, up to and including the possibility of picking an IOL. If he doesn't move up or down the centers from Duke or Oregon would be solid picks given Ragnow's injury history.

I don't think he will pick an IOL, but if the right guy is there, sure go for it. In this front office we trust, lol freep.

The thing I hate most about draft season is all the stories about "blockbuster Detroit Lions trade" with clickbait headlines designed to make it look like something happened but it's really just some nonsense a hack columnist dreamt up.

When it comes to the draft, here's what we know about Brad Holmes.
- He likes to address needs in FA so he doesn't feel like having to draft for immediate need.
- He has is own draft board and isn't afraid to stick to it.
- He isn't afraid to move up or down the board if he likes the deal and the way the board is running out.

So good luck figuring out what he's going to do. Especially picking at 29 there's pretty much no position off the table. Bob Quinn was a bit more predictable and tended to draft a high need position in round 1. It backfired a couple times with Okudah and Jarrad Davis. But I personally prefer Brad's approach for long term success. Yeah, you don't want to draft a guy that has no path to playing like QB or something dumb. But even a position like OT isn't off the table in round 1 for me. Back half of round 1 guys aren't always immediate starters. Decker is getting older and OT3 is a pretty important position all things considered. I wouldn't hate it if you think a potential future starter at the position slipped to 29. Brad is going to have some very tough decisions regarding salary cap next offseason and one potential option is to replace Decker. I would hate to backslide in O-Line play so you've got to make sure the guy is right, but at the same time the salary cap is still real despite what some say, and decisions are looming.

I would be pretty surprised, actually, if he doesn't move up or down. Just not the type to sit tight and see who drops into his lap - if he wants a guy he'll go get him. If he's not seeing what he wants he'll trade down.

agree, Booker. if he doesn't try to jump up a few spots and target someone specific, I'd actually be surprised as well if he stays put at 29 and doesn't drop down (assuming there's someone to trade with)

also perfectly fine with whatever position he decides to address. IOL, Edge, CB, Safety, whatever... about the only position's I would be annoyed by are QB and off ball LB

It would be quite a surprise if they took a QB or LB, given the recent drafting of Hooker and Campbell, but I wouldn't rule it out completely. I'd say <1% chance of QB, <5% of LB and to even hit those numbers it'd probably be a trade down into round 2.

Anyway, predictably smart moves today locking up St. Brown and Sewell. Those are anchor guys, great that they'll be around for years to come.

watched a lot of Jackson Powers-Johnson this season
found the following a fair summary

as is this

yeah that's pretty much why I listed those positions.

for you oline guys this sounded solid, imo

https://www.prideofdetroit.com/2024/...-detroit-lions

Boom! One of the top 2 corners expected to be well off the board by the 20s falls to 24 and Detroit swoops in. His comparison was Witherspoon who went 5th last year and we got him at 24. I'm excited. Corner is now a strength of this team, not a fatal flaw. Some people didn't like the trade value, giving up a 3rd to move up 5 spots. I've heard commentators say "Brad is so good at finding talent in the draft, I want him to have as many picks as possible." But one of the things that makes Brad good is that he knows how to read the board and move up and down to get the right guys.

There's a LOT of good offensive linemen left on the board. At this point I wouldn't hate Brad selling future or late round picks to move up in the 2nd to grab O-Line. No team can be both stacked and deep at every position group, but I do worry about O-Line fall-off after the starting 5, as well as the future. I think if you can get a premier backup and future lineman, you do what it takes to get that this year.

The thing that's different is he finally has a good roster in place. He doesn't need to replace guys at 15 positions. So it's okay if he doesn't draft in bulk.

Excellent first round selection, will be interested to see what he does in R2. There are a lot of guys gone so far tonight that I would have expected him to be interested in, so I have a weak expectation that he may well trade down.

I haven't scoured the net for draft grades (mostly 'cause they're stupid), but I would imagine they're a mixed bag, with generally positive reviews of the CB picks and Wingo and Mahagony and a bunch of WTF for the other guys.

But of course that's a perfect encapsulation of why draft grades are stupid. Pundits don't put in the work that NFL teams do, plus we don't know what's going on inside the fort. Projections of performance only go so far. We'll see how they did in a year or two.

But since opinions are like *******s, I generally think they did fine.

I agree. The only thing more useless than pre-draft rampant speculation is post-draft grades. That doesn't mean there isn't anything worth analyzing and discussing though.

I'm sure Holmes got some talented players, he usually does. Both corners are aggressive man coverage run stopping guys. This was a strong CB class with not a lot of consistency regarding the rankings, so it sort of made sense they double dipped if their top guy was still there in round 2. However at least in the mean time they are going to have a logjam at CB. Carlton Davis and Amik Robertson were 1 & 2 on the depth chart going into the draft. I'm not sure that's changed. Knowing Brad & Aaron, Terrion Arnold will have to earn his way into a starting spot. Rakestraw likely has a longer path to the roster, probably having to wait until one of the veterans departs in FA. But if Brad hit on both these picks we have starting CB locked down for the next 4+ years.

It's worth noting that he opted not to go O-Line early in this draft. Brad paid lip service to keeping strength a strength, but ultimately we are going into next season with a top tier O-Line, but one that aside from Sewell are all in the back halves of their careers. Depth was an issue last season as the backup team got mauled in the preseason. But generally as long as there was only 1 starter out they were able to compensate for the fill-in. There were some developmental O-Line picks made, but those guys are unlikely to be ready to play this year even if they develop on schedule. I'm on the record as saying OT3 is an underrated position of importance, and it's not one Detroit is strong at. There was a run on tackles in the middle of round 1 where that tends to happen, so it's not like they could get a top tier guy here. But still, something to think about.

Brad got aggressive with the trade-ups this year. He traded away next years 3rd & 4th round picks, and that's typically where you can still get a decent OG. He instead waited until late day 3 to address guard. As for the trade value, it's interesting. Hopefully he's been scouting next years class and hence the decision to dip into next year, and he's not overly borrowing from the future to improve SB equity. I have been hearing how next years class had their prime development years cut short by COVID, so maybe there is something to this.

I don't mind moving up for Arnold if they had a 1rst round grade on him, its just the cost of doing business. This must be the luxury good teams have enjoyed while drafting.

Supposedly they only had 14 1rst round grades last year and landed 3 of them (Gibbs, Campbell, Branch) plus LaPorta so I'm just here to observe and not gonna second guess anything Holmes does.

Someone on reddit posted a composite of 20-25 draft grades and the Lions ranked 11th. I can say the ones I've looked at have been more positive: IIRC the Athletic had Lions #3, a couple others had them 4 or 5 I think.

A lot of analysts really didn't like either of the trade-up picks, particularly back into the 4th for taking Giovanni Manu. I saw more than one analyst saying they had a Free-Agent grade on him, so it's a huge reach to draft him in the third (much less trading away next year's 3rd to do so). OTOH, the guy's apparently a physical freak and we have one of the better oline coaches in the league, certainly seems like there's a chance he turns into a good player in a year or two. Seems a lot like the Martin pick from last year - psychical tools, little production, project, and we traded up significant draft capital to move up and take him several rounds ahead of where mocks had him going. We'll see where both pan out.

This thread on reddit compared what teams got/gave up in all the draft trades, and the Lions had the worst showing in terms of giving up more capital than they received, with a net of overpaying points worth a mid-3rd-rounder. However, more than half our deficit came from the Arnold trade up, where giving up a 3rd rounder to move up 5 slots at the end of the 1st round is indeed a big overpay in a vacuum. However, IMO if the Lions had traded up from 29 to say 18 with a 3rd rounder and picked Arnold, everyone would still love the pick, and now, the Lions would be showing a surplus in value on that trade. So, grain of salt etc etc.

Lastly, @Koss per your comments on not addressing oline, it seems like almost every draft analysis calls out that getting Mahogany in the 6th round was a steal; I've read over and over that people had a top-100 3rd/4th round grade on him. Now, just because most draft analysts like a guy that doesn't mean that every NFL GM kept making a mistake over and over not taking a guy, only time will tell. But it gives me a least a little more hope than normal that a 6th rounder could turn into an average starter in a year or two. If Mahogany and Sorsdal from last year develop then o line will at least be in decent shape beyond this year. But yeah, if one or both of those guys doesn't pan out, it could all of a sudden get dicey on that unit (and I don't want to learn if Goff can play behind a bad o line better than he used to).

fwiw they're planning on moving Manu to right guard. their idea is to have him play next to Sewell and basically demolish teams, lol.

https://www.prideofdetroit.com/2024/...ard-not-tackle

this does lead to an even thinner tackle group but we still have some cap room to play with. they'll probably still bring someone in.

I think they'll see if he can play guard, but if I'm predicting the future I'd say if he works out he'll end up at RT in a couple years with Sewell flipping to LT.

It'll be very interesting to see how it plays out with Decker. He's only signed through this year, during which he will be 31. He's definitely earned at least one more big contract - will it be with Detroit? He's the longest tenured Lion and has publicly said he wants to play his whole career here. Will Brad stick to strictly business and cut him for a rookie on a rookie deal? Would Decker take a short extension and retire at 32 or 33? Can the Lions pay Sewell as the highest paid lineman in the league and also give Decker an above-average 4 year contract?

My prediction is Decker gets a 3 year deal that has a team out after 2. He keeps playing at a high level, and unless they collapse or use what little remaining draft capital they have to trade up, they are very unlikely to be in position to draft a starter ready tackle. Those guys don't make it past pick 20.

this has been a specialty with this front office. the guy behind the guys, Brandon Sosna, has been great as the strategic planning contract negotiator for this team. super sharp.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sp...d/73109742007/