Brad Holmes was so eager to draft Penei Sewell with his first pick as GM of the Lions that he submitted it before the NFL was ready. Moments later, Dan Campbell got on the phone with Sewell and told him, "You’re going to change the culture for us, man."
"We’re going to build this thing around guys like you, you hear me?" Campbell said. "You come in and play just like you’ve been playing, be just as nasty and dirty as you’ve been and you’re going to help us turn this thing around. We’re going to be winners, man. You’re the building block, you hear me? We’re fired up."
So fired up that Holmes bear-hugged Campbell when he got off the phone, then started flexing, screaming and pounding tables in Detroit's draft room. Later that night, Holmes called Sewell "a cornerstone" of the Lions' future.
"The talent level is easy to see, but the more and more you got to know the human being, he’s just a great kid that comes from a great family. He’s just such a fit for what our culture is here," Holmes said. "It was just an eruption of excitement."
Sewell has done nothing but prove them right in two seasons since. One of the youngest players in the 2021 draft, the 6'5, 335-pound, mean-mugging right tackle took the NFL by storm as a rookie, then took it up another notch in year two. He was the ninth best tackle in the NFL this season per Pro Football Focus, while grading out No. 5 in run blocking and allowing just two sacks on 625 snaps in pass protection.
"I’m ready to run through anybody," Sewell said on draft night. "I’m ready to put the pads on every day and get under somebody’s chin."
He first put on the pads in the American Samoa village of Malaeimi, the tiny island his family called home in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, some 6,700 miles from Detroit. Sewell lived with his parents and three brothers in what he called “a shack," on "a beach surrounded by nothing but water.” His father coached the high school football team on the island and little Penei, if there ever was such a thing, liked to help carry the bags and set up the cones at practice. He's been in love with the game ever since.
When the Lions were on the brink this season, Sewell was one of the quiet leaders who refused to let them slip. Instead of wilting, he said after Detroit dropped to 1-6 in a Week 8 loss to the Dolphins that he would only work harder: "That’s the No. 1 thing when you’re building trust in that leadership role. You gotta do stuff that no one else is doing. It may seem weird, it may seem odd, but we have to change it.” The Lions went 8-2 the rest of the way, led by one of the best offensive lines in football.
"I was truly a part of something special," Sewell said Monday after the Lions wrapped up their season with a defining win over the Packers. "I thank Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes for bringing me here because I truly can’t see my life anywhere else than to be here with the Detroit Lions. Every person that I’ve come across in this locker room, I’ve got nothing but love for them. I don’t know how it is in any other building, but man, I feel like everybody in this locker room is really close with each other and actually genuinely cares.
"That’s the thing I really love most about this team. It really makes me want to go even harder and crazier. That’s why I can’t wait for next year already."
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Three rounds after the Lions drafted Sewell, they drafted Amon-Ra St. Brown, now one of the best receivers in the NFL. St. Brown echoed Sewell Monday in thanking Holmes for bringing him to Detroit. When Holmes was told about their gratitude in an interview this week with DetroitLions.com, he got so choked up he had to fight back tears.
"That means a lot. Those guys, you go through a lot," said Holmes, pausing to catch his voice. "I’m getting emotional on this, but you go through a lot in the pre-draft process in acquiring those guys. And there’s certain guys that stand out in the process. Penei Sewell, I remember we did so much work on him and then finally, me and Dan had a Zoom meeting with him like right before the draft. And I’ll never forget, it was something about him. It was something about him and just the way that he carried himself and the way that he spoke about his background and his family.
"It was something about him that me and Dan were like, ‘This kid’s the guy.’"
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