If Brad Holmes is being honest, he didn't think the Lions would have a shot at signing C.J. Gardner-Johnson. He had just led the NFL in interceptions while helping the Eagles reach the Super Bowl, and the grades he received from Detroit's pro personnel department were "sky high, through the roof, for what he did as a safety," said Holmes.
"When I saw the grades and the ball production and all that, I just figured, OK, this guy’s probably getting top-safety money and we’re just not going to be in that market," Holmes told reporters Monday at the the NFL owners meetings.
What's more, with the Lions bringing back Kerby Joseph and a healthy Tracy Walker, "it’s not like we were eager to acquire another starting-level, high-level safety," said Holmes.
But as Gardner-Johnson lingered on the free agent market after talks broke down with the Eagles, and knowing the flexibility he could bring Detroit's secondary, Holmes kept calling Gardner-Johnson's agent on his daily drive home from Allen Park.
"Usually that’s my decompression space, but I just kept calling, just kind of checking in, saying, ‘Hey man, what’s going on?’" said Holmes. "That kept escalating, escalating and it escalated all the way up until Friday and then Saturday we followed up again internally as a group."
That Sunday morning, Holmes said he had "another one of those routine calls" with Gardner-Johnson's agent and "it just happened to escalate until it got to a position where we could get it done." By Sunday night, Gardner-Johnson was coming to Detroit on a one-year, $8 million deal, after having turned down a backloaded, three-year, $24 million deal with the Eagles.
And Holmes, a husband and father of two, couldn't contain his excitement in a sleeping household.
"I was really, really excited. Sunday night, almost 10:00, the kids were asleep upstairs, wife was sleeping and I basically woke the whole house up when we got that done," Holmes said. "Just a player of that caliber, how he fits like a glove in our defense and what he’s going to bring for our culture and our style and how we want to play, I got a great text from (Aaron Glenn) as soon as it happened. It was a good feeling
"Again, just another piece to bolster our backend, and not just our backend. It’s our defense to a whole. There’s just a certain way that we want to play defense and he fits that to a T."
Glenn and Gardner-Johnson go way back, to a seven-on-seven tournament Gardner-Johnson's senior year of high school. Glenn later lobbied for the Saints to draft Gardner-Johnson in 2019, which they did in the fourth round, and coached him for two seasons in New Orleans. Now they're reuniting in Detroit, where Glenn is trying to turn around a defense that finished last in the NFL in 2022.
Gardner-Johnson will certainly help, the new leader of a revamped secondary that features fellow free agent signings Cam Sutton and Emmanuel Moseley.
"When we talk about corners and versatility and what we call position flex, C.J. was a name that we’ve heard Aaron Glenn talk about for the past couple of years," said Holmes. "We knew that was the fit of what we’re trying to bring. And you see, he’s a real dog and another guy that’s a smart football player.
"We were fortunate that the market came to a place that we were able to make it happen, but his familiarity with Dan and specifically AG was a big seller. We were very, very fortunate that he had that prior relationship."
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