We all do this and there is a lot of agreement, but every year I try to refine my understanding of Brad Holmes system, which honestly is getting very predictable. This is what I think I know:
Brad Holmes keeps a very small draft board. It may be the smallest in the NFL. This is why he trades so much. You have to when there aren’t many people on your board. It also makes it easy for him to know when to trade and when to sink a lot of value into a trade.
Here are the things we value: Athleticism, Grit/Loves Football, Versatility, Pro College Program and/or football smarts. and meeting a very specific profile for the position you’ll be playing. I’m pretty sure that last one rules out most of the players people here like. You can only be missing one of those and still be on a Brad Holmes draft board.
Here are the things we value less: Production. We seem to choose traits over production, which is why Holmes takes so many fliers on players who either have lower production then you’d want for their draft value, played at a lower level of competition, or lost time to injury. It goes without saying that character issues will eliminate you from the board. This is Sheila’s influence, even before Holmes came in, but I’m guessing Holmes agrees. We also don’t care about positional value of course.
The whole strategy is designed to increase the hit rate with a smaller pool of good fitting players. Notice how even when it seems like Holmes is reaching for a player, everyone agrees they are a good fit. Finding good fits increases the odds of success, and is thus worth throwing away more draft capital than is normal.
We have so few holes in our roster now, and so many veterans want to play for us, that it’s natural we’d draft fewer players. It feels like we are drafting more for need this year, but it could just be a coincidence, since it hasn’t been true in the past. Even if this is the case, we’re using the same strategy.
I don’t think any other team in the league drafts like this, though It will be interesting to look at how Chicago and the Jets start drafting.
I think you got it about right too.
Except for one middle round head scratcher that he routinely overpays for.
If everyone else hits, I can live with it.
The next trend that is extremely troublesome. He starting to trade future draft picks quite a bit and I absolutely hate doing that. Really don’t care who the player is.
PLAYERS WITH THE RIGHT PHYSICAL/EMOTIONAL MAKEUP + GREAT COACHES + GREAT CULTURE + PATIENCE = SOMETHING SPECIAL (or at least, something solid).
They’re SUPER patient w/young player development. And I think OP is right that they discount college production. They’re more interested in “elite raw material” guys and what they CAN be rather than what they’ve been.
TeSlaa didn’t have big time production, but he’s 6’4," big and fast, and they doubtless think he’s wired right. DBarnes, Rodrigues - those guys are working out. Bromart seems not to have worked out. TeSlaa, we’ll see in a couple years.
I actually think their strategy values production very highly. Gibbs had great production. Branch had great production. Other teams didn’t value that production or see it relative to whoever else they thought was higher on their board. Sewell had great production, etc.
Great instincts usually transfer to great production. And prior production is usually the greatest indicator of future success especially if you are productive at each next higher level of your career.
What the Lions aren’t afraid to do is evaluate film and look for instincts that are flying under the radar though. Perhaps playing for a lesser known school or playing in a given system might keep keep somebody’s production down or off the radar of most analysts.
Imho, the Lions inspect many different measurables and give each player a score and then simply trust and stick to it.
I don’t think their board is probably any smaller necessarily than other teams. What we probably don’t see and sometimes forget is that as every other team picks and removes someone from the draft board, many of those players are being removed from the Lion own list of top rated players.
With each successive pick, as the Lion’s own board shrinks it actually becomes easier for Brad and Dan to simply focus on who is left and hone in on who has the highest grades on their own subjective player scores.
I would be willing to bet that this year they probably valued TeSlaa so much higher than any thing left on their own board that they just didn’t see the value of waiting for some other player with a lower grade in a much lower round. They don’t care about positional need if their grade is low for the players at that position. And I can see why they think like that.
They invest thousands of hours every year and thru the years evaluating these players and trust that subjective system.
But their system is as subjective as the next team’s. So if / when it works it’s great. So far it’s been working pretty good.
Excellent post! Think you pretty much nailed it, especially liked the bit about only one characteristic can be missing. One thought; although it might fit under the ‘Grit/Loves Football’ category, I think identifying positive character traits/leadership (not just avoiding negatives) could deserve its own category as a Lion criteria. Captaincy, leadership in a position room, opinion of college coaches and teammates all seem to count along with what the lions glean from the interviews.
Its honesty not hard to understand his strategy. After seeing what’s he’d done. You did a great job but i think it’s a lot easier than that.
“Grit” has a lot of sub-categories under it. Tough. Physical. Kick your azz. We know what a Dan Campbell guy is. High motor. Don’t quit. relentless, puts it all out there, loves football, loves teammates, i’d say even good families, and God fearing men. And it also depends on what they expect out of each position. You can’t be a WR here if you don’t block. You can’t be a CB here if you don’t tackle. I think it’s easy to assume they like Rod Woodson more than Deion Sanders. They like Brian Dawkins.
Brian Branch, Sam LaPorta, Monty, etc those are those guys.
He wants football players. Not guys who look the part,. He wont reach for need. He’s not a needs guy, but of course he understand the team needs.
He’s been amazing and I trust in Brad. lifelong football fan i am. Prayed for this type of GM, HC, and this kind if teams.
He’ll fill needs, and find good vets for 1 year or short term contracts to help.
Build through the draft, signed guys short term who help, re-ign your own guys.
Yeah I was thinking about this as we go into day three. Production seems to be more important in the last three rounds after all of their “special” players are gone.
Good post but I disagree with you regarding production. I believe that production does matter, it is just that stats do not matter. This is something I agree with. Stats in college doesn’t always translate to the NFL, it does sometimes but not enough for it to really matter. Production is important, is the player doing what is ask of them or are they going freelance? While production does not always translate to stats, it is important to show that the players are playing for the team and not individual accolades.
lions have changed their philosophy alot over the last four years. They took risks for traits when the GRIT didn’t match in the early days bc they need talent. IFFY will never happen again, they will never draft another high trait guy who doesn’t also have high GRIT. Iffy drove everyone on the staff and FO nuts. JAMO they never regretted drafting but they underestimated how emotionally immature he actually was.
They love the hell out of the kid bc he accepted their challenges and tough love and grew. He bought in. Iffy never did. So when judging Emotional IQ Dan’s the standard. JAMO was really immature and impulsive. He does have ADHD. His emotional iq is growing…but ur not wrong. He has come a long long way.