After almost seven long weeks, the Detroit Lions finally have their man to run the front office.
Thursday, Sheila Ford Hamp hired Rams director of college scouting Brad Holmes to replace Bob Quinn as the team’s new GM signing the 41-year-old to a five-year contract.
Cynical Lions fans will decry the move simply because a Ford made the hire and that’s fine — the Ford family certainly has done nothing to earn themselves the benefit of the doubt from beaten and abused fanbase.
Other, perhaps more forgiving Lions fans may disapprove of the Holmes hire because he doesn’t have prior experience as an NFL GM let alone someone who has had executive experience working running an NFL front office.
Now that’s a legitimate concern and will probably come back to haunt the hire if Holmes ends up falling flat on his face.
However, for the very most part, any NFL GM with experience actually out there looking for a job as a retread is probably someone that isn’t going to bring any meaningful success to a new NFL team. It’s common practice in the NFL that you don’t let good assets getaway whether it be a quarterback, head coach, or general manager.
With all that said there’s still plenty of reasons to be cool with the hiring of Brad Holmes.
First, you can’t say the Lions didn’t take their time in the search for a new GM or shoot from the hip on some hot candidate.
Michael Rothstein of ESPN highlighted the complexity of the search, something the Lions haven’t been prone to doing before as they’ve been more interested in trying to replicate a system rather than building one of their own.
But take this from how the Lions conducted their search: It was a consistent process looking in many places, with 12 candidates interviewing from a variety of backgrounds. The Lions spoke to three candidates internally. They interviewed former general managers in Thomas Dimitroff, Rick Smith, Scott Pioli and Jeff Ireland. They met with the hot name from television, Louis Riddick, and other front-office staffers from multiple organizations and viewpoints.
ESPN.com
Like the fans, the higher-ups in the Lions organization always seemed to have the tendency to fall in love with one particular candidate and latch themselves onto that wagon. This was ever so apparent during the last regime when they went with Bob Quinn to essentially try and build the NFC’s version of the Patriots by bringing in any New England cast-off. This was essentially coupled with a head coach in Matt Patricia who the front office probably already decided they wanted without even having a sit down with him.
That’s not to say Quinn didn’t have an abundance of fan approval when he hired Patricia. Fans initially loved the move to hire the former Pats DC and I can’t blame them for that. But simply put that’s the reason why fans aren’t in charge of making head coaching hires.
On the flip, anyone out there saying to a certainty Holmes is going to come in and help lead the Lions to prominence are kidding themselves.
The fact of the matter is no one knows how Holmes will ultimately work out in Detroit. As obvious as it is, the only evidence we can go off of when it comes to measuring Holmes’ possible success is what he’s done with the Rams.
Holmes was part of the decision making process that landed the Rams DT Aaron Donald 13th overall in the 2014 Draft while the Lions opted to pass and take Eric Ebron. Holmes was also part of the team that pushed for the Rams to take Jared Goff over Carson Wentz with the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft. Lastly, Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press points out too that Holmes was one of the ones who helped keep the Rams on a competitive level even this season as Los Angeles is set to take on Green Bay in the division round of the NFL postseason despite the Rams not having a first-round pick the last four seasons.
“Throughout our search for a new general manager, Brad was someone who stood out immediately.” Lions president Rod Wood said. “His abilities as a critical thinker, along with his extensive experience implementing technology and analytics into his approach to scouting, were among the many decisive qualities Brad displayed in our time getting to know him during the interview process. We look forward to him helping lead our organization as we take the next steps as a team.”
Detroit Free Press
Now if you don’t want to give any credence to what Rod Wood says that’s fine. Again like the rest of the Ford family, Wood is someone too who has earned the cynicism from Lions fans. However, if the Lions were actually intrigued by a guy whose critical thinking techniques are in part driven by the use of technology and analytics then that’s definitely a good thing.
Lastly, given where we’re at in today’s social discourse, it is ever so important to bring on a guy who’s tuned into the significance of social justice and shaping the team and overall organization’s mindset to reflect that. Rams COO Kevin Demoff said that Holmes was part of a leadership team on social justice and diversity issues for the franchise. I know this won’t mean much to the white reactionary but it’ll certainly stand out to minority players who are disillusioned with the pre-George Floyd NFL who thumbed their noses at social causes and blacklisted Colin Kaepernick.
So whether you hate this hire or love it, at least the Lions didn’t go out and hire a head coach before addressing their need for a GM first. And with that, we’ll be able to get a better idea of Holmes’ own vision for the Lions in the coming weeks as he begins to widdle down his finalists for the new Lions head coach.
