Allen Park — Here’s a quick reminder for everyone not named Brad Holmes: The five biggest spenders in NFL free agency last offseason were, in order, Denver, New Orleans, Atlanta, Chicago and Las Vegas.
See any playoff teams in that group? Nope. And if you do the math — beyond the more than $1 billion in contract dollars those teams handed out last spring and summer — you’ll see that just one of them even managed a winning record in 2023: the Saints went 9-8 and still couldn’t win the mediocre NFC South.
Here’s another example to show why the Lions’ general manager has been smart to largely avoid the league’s annual frenzy this time around: Of the top 12 players heading into free agency in 2022, according to an NFL.com ranking at the time, only a handful remain with the teams that signed them. Three of those only after agreeing to restructure their contracts, including Dolphins left tackle Terron Armstead, who also is the only one among that dazzling dozen to make a Pro Bowl. As for the rest? They’ve all been released or traded.
But the point is, free-wheeling, free-agent spending often leaves teams in the jackpot rather than hitting one. And if you were listening to Holmes in the weeks since the Lions made their run to the NFC title game, he told you as much. This was the “marshmallow test” Holmes was talking about, and based on all the armchair angst out there, some of you are failing it, as expected.
Sure Nick.
The media landscape has changed over the years where we used to have the local papers and national outlets coverings teams/leagues now we have bloggers everywhere.
I suspect that Holmes was directing it at the various media types vs regular fans on SM. I’m also sure Nick is a little upset over the changes in his industry which is understandable.
I love that this staff actually does what it preaches. And thankfully Sheila held onto them long enough to turn things around and show that what they were doing was actually going to work. Now they are emboldened to stick to the plan.
Brad keeps saying that every player acquisition is “intentional.” I love that he says that, because it is absolutely true. I pointed out that Brad doesn’t chase down players. His focus is on the ROLE the player is going to have with the team. Brad said he wanted OBJ…as a player. But he could never make the money work for the ROLE that OBJ would have with the team. OBJ received 64 targets for the Ravens. That is literally the exact same number of targets that Josh Reynolds received for us. OBJ had 35 catches for 565 yards and 3 TDs. Reynolds had 40 catches for 608 yards and 5 TDs. This isn’t to say that OBJ and Josh would have had duplicate roles in the Lions offense. What I am saying is that our coaching staff tries to be honest with Brad in how much they would actually use/need a guy like OBJ, and Brad creates a budget based on that. So we wouldn’t fall into the trap of paying a guy $15M for production that is less than Josh Reynolds.
Obviously as a fan in the off-season you want the big name or impact player to add to the team. I’m at the point with this staff to wait and see how it unfolds during the season.
To me, FA and the draft just gives us something to talk about until training camp gets here. The goal is to win a SB something we have never been able to say before.
