The countdown is on to the start of Brad Holmes’ first NFL draft as GM of the Detroit Lions.
As a rookie GM, he’s already acting like a veteran when it comes to not tipping his hand to the media.
At his virtual pre-draft press conference on Friday, basically Holmes said there are a cluster of players the Lions would draft with the seventh overall pick.
Offense? Maybe
Defense? Could be.
He’s not sharing and, of course, we didn’t expect otherwise really. He didn’t slip up either.
“I still think that depth on both sides of the ball is of the utmost importance. I know you can probably take that as a fence answer, but I just can’t be more authentic with that,’’ Holmes said. “I look at both sides of the ball, and I just don’t think there’s ever enough depth in certain spots that you can field. I know you’d probably like for me to say we need more defense or more offense, but just looking at our depth chart every day, I do see that there are some areas to address on both sides, for sure.”
With a shiny No. 7 draft pick, he could trade it and get more value for the long term for the Lions.
“I will say the value, it’s of extreme value, I would say. Even whenever you’re picking in the top-10, obviously it’s an extremely valued pick,’’ Holmes said. “It’s very exciting to be looking at this crop of players that would be worthy of selecting.”
Will he trade up? Maybe.
Will he trade down? Could be.
He did admit there have been discussions, he didn’t way with whom.
Are you sensing a trend?
Holmes seems confident and ready to get the draft going instead of waiting until Thursday night.
He’s learned from some of the best and is heeding their advice.
Don’t look for him to take a huge risk on that first pick.
“You always want to hit a home run, but I will say when you talk about risk on the first pick, I always kind of go back to when you’re turning that pick in, you don’t want to feel nervous. I know you asked me about previous GMs, so I’ll even give the credit to Billy Devaney on that one, one that he used to always bring up, is that you want to be confident and you want to feel really, really good when you make that selection. Not a nervousness of, ‘I hope this works,’’’ Holmes said. “I’m not saying that all selections don’t have any warts, because everybody’s got a hole or something that they can improve on, but at the end of the day, do we have buy-in and do we all feel good about the pick?”
The countdown is on.
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