Why have the Detroit Lions made aggressive trade ups in three consecutive drafts? Lions GM Brad Holmes sheds some light on the situation.
The Detroit Lions have been anything but passive in the middle rounds of the draft in the last three years. In 2023, Lions general manager Brad Holmes packaged two fifth-round picks to go from 122 to 96 in order to grab defensive tackle Brodric Martin. Last year, the Lions spent a future third-round pick in order to grab British Columbia offensive tackle Giovanni Manu in the fourth round.
This year, Holmes turned up the aggression even more. In order to move from pick 102 to 70, he sent two future third-round picks to the Jacksonville Jaguars, and got two sixth-round picks in return. The selection of Arkansas wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa has been viewed as Detroit’s most questionable move of the draft.
While Holmes has always shown some level of aggression in the draft (he traded up 20 spots in the first round to grab Jameson Williams), this pattern of behavior in the middle of the draft seems to be a newer development. Some of Holmes’ best draft picks have been in the middle rounds, so it’s somewhat surprising to see him consistently part ways with picks in that general area.
However, Holmes joined 97.1 The Ticket this week and offered a fairly interesting explanation for this aggression.
“When you look at the past two or three drafts, even including this one, it has not been the same depth, the depth of talent,” Holmes said. “This year or last year or the year before, you don’t find an Alim McNeill in the third round. You don’t find an Amon-Ra St. Brown in the fourth round. Those guys just aren’t there as of recent. So we’re sitting there at 102, ‘Okay, if we stay here we’re going to be dealing with a different level of player based on our board—not on the 31 other boards, but based on our board.”
This mirrors exactly what Lions director of college scouting Brian Hudspeth said a week before the draft. Hudspeth believes that with college players getting paid now, they are staying in school longer, and that has eliminated two rounds worth of underclassmen talent.
“There’s a lot less depth in the draft,” Hudspeth said. “Because, generally, at the peak of underclassmen coming out, you had about 120 to 130 players (per draft). Now it’s down to 55 to 70. So you’ve lost, essentially, almost two rounds of players in some regards. Now, that’s making the assumption that they were all going to be in the top rounds—and they generally were—but you’ve kinda lost some depth. So the NIL world has changed us a little bit that way.”
Name, imagine and likeness (NIL) rights were implemented in July of 2021, so the timing of Detroit’s mid-round aggression—starting in 2023—certainly matches up with the impact of this huge shift in college trends.
You don’t have to necessarily love Holmes’ decisions, and you can certainly quibble with the individual players he has drafted as a result of these aggressive trades, but this does give some more important context as to why the Lions have been so trade-up heavy in the middle of the draft.
One has to wonder as the college eligibility runs out for the first NIL classes, will depth return to the NFL Draft and will the Lions turn down the aggression in the future? Time will tell.
