Indianapolis — Brad Holmes has been here before. More times than he can count, really. Fifteen, maybe? Sixteen? It’s hard to say anymore.
But this is the first time he has made the drive south from Detroit to the NFL Scouting Combine. And this is the first time he’s here as a general manager, because last year’s event was canceled due to the pandemic and since Holmes is only 13 months into this monumental task of trying to turn the Lions into a winning football organization.
Which is a long way from his introduction to this annual event back in 2006 as a fledgling combine scout for the then-St. Louis Rams, who are now the reigning Super Bowl champs in Los Angeles.
“But it’s good to be back here in Indy,” Holmes said Tuesday, smiling, as he talked about the long road ahead. “There was a little nostalgia in making the drive down, knowing how much I miss coming down and getting this process started. But, just like I talked about with the Senior Bowl, it was a phase in our process — a critical phase in our process — and now we’re at the next phase. We got some clarity from the Senior Bowl, and now we’ll get some more clarity, hopefully.”
Yet what’s clear already here, in listening to Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell speak Tuesday — following an opening night of interviews with 2022 NFL Draft prospects in Indianapolis, and before the on-field workouts begin later this week — is how much more comfortable they feel entering Year 2.
And it’s not just in their preparation for a monumental draft this spring, where the Lions will own five of the first 100 picks and more draft capital than all but a few NFL teams.
It’s also as they head into free agency, which gets underway in a couple of weeks but already is mapped out, in many respects. The Lions have held internal meetings about which players they’ll target when the free-agent negotiating period opens March 14. They’ll have a much better idea of how things will play out after the two-week window for teams to use the franchise tag on players closes next Tuesday.
But I think it’s a safe bet they’ll have a different approach than they did a year ago, when 12 of the 13 free agents the Lions signed were brought in on one-year contracts. (Running back Jamaal Williams, who signed a two-year deal, was the lone exception.) That patchwork approach was both by design and out of necessity, as Holmes began overhauling the roster and starting the Lions’ latest rebuild.
“We were in a position where we had to resort to a lot of those one-year deals, just with the resources that we had available to us,” Holmes said. “We’ll have a little bit more resources available to us this year, where we’re not just searching for one-year deal guys. I’m not saying that we won’t sign a guy that’s on a one-year deal — that’ll still be in play — but I guess you can say the universe is a lot more open to us this year.”
And that could make a world of difference this offseason as the Lions begin what Holmes has called the “player acquisition phase” of the plan he and Campbell hashed out a year ago.
Much of the fans’ focus understandably is on this upcoming draft, where the Lions expect to add a difference-maker with the No. 2 overall pick (Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson?) and probably at least a couple more immediate starters beyond that. And while this year’s class may be lacking elite quarterback talent, Holmes insists it’s “shaping up to be a pretty good draft” with quality depth on the defensive line, at wide receiver and in the secondary.
Yet even before the Lions set their draft board, they’ll have an opportunity to reset their roster in a significant way through free agency.
Landing a premium player like safety Marcus Williams, a 25-year-old who played his first four seasons in the NFL under Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, should be a priority if the cap-strapped Saints decide not to tag him for a second straight year. That’s regardless of what the Lions end up doing with their own pending free agent safety in Tracy Walker.
Raiding a division rival for a player like Green Bay’s De’Vondre Campbell, an off-ball linebacker coming off an All-Pro season on a one-year deal with the Packers also might require big dollars but would make a lot of sense.
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Or they could opt to make a multiyear investment in a veteran wide receiver, a position where the Lions readily admit they need to find a true No. 1 option to help unlock the offense’s full potential.
Holmes wasn’t tipping his hand about the Lions’ plans Tuesday, though he did acknowledge, “You want to be selective and you want to be strategic in free agency.”
But the more he talks about the smoke beginning to clear and the clouds starting to clear, the more you see how this might take shape. The plan might not have changed, but the approach almost assuredly will.
john.niyo@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @JohnNiyo