Don't be surprised this offseason if the Lions don't splurge on a big-ticket free agent. Their biggest deals are likely to come in house.
The blueprint for Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell is clear: draft, develop, re-sign, fill in the cracks in free agency. They brought it with them from their respective tenures with the Rams and the Saints and have followed it to the cusp of the Super Bowl in Detroit. Why change now?
"Between Brad and myself, the success we’ve had in the places that we’ve been has really been that way," Campbell said Tuesday at the NFL combine. "That’s what it comes from. You want to be a good team, you have to draft well. And then you re-sign those guys. That’s your core and then you find the right pieces of free agents to fill in with. We both believe that."
The Lions will likely award extensions this offseason to quarterback Jared Goff, receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and possibly defensive tackle Alim McNeill. That will eat a large chunk of their budget, even with some $60 million in cap space. And for the Lions, that's a plus. They want to invest in players they can trust. St. Brown and McNeill were two of their first draft picks under Holmes and Campbell, and Goff was their first big acquisition, imported from the Rams where Holmes had watched him play -- and win -- for five years.
"You try your best to acquire the right players through the draft and then the goal is to develop and once they reach a point where they’re eligible to re-sign, you re-sign them and you feel really, really good about it," Holmes said Tuesday. "That’s why we talk about how selective and strategic we do have to be in free agency, because you don’t really know these players.
"You see what you see on film, but that’s the easy, coherent part. You don’t really know them-know them, so that’s why you gotta be a little careful. But when you draft and you know your own guys, you feel a lot more comfortable."
There are several high-priced free agents who fit the Lions' needs. And it would, in theory, make sense for the club to go all-in. Vikings edge rusher Danielle Hunter, Jags edge rusher Josh Allen and Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones immediately come to mind. All of them could cost more than $20 million per year on the open market. The most the Lions have spent on a free agent in the Campbell and Holmes era is $11 million per year on cornerback Cam Sutton.
Campbell reiterated Holmes and said with any external addition, the Lions have to be careful after assembling a strong roster of like-minded players. They don't want to risk the culture they've worked so hard to cultivate.
"You want to go spend top dollar on a free agent that’s not your own, you want to know everything about that player before you bring him into your locker room, whereas you pay top dollar for your own guys that are worthy for the production because you know everything about them," he said. "It’s just something that we believe in and something we’re going to continue to do."
On top of homegrown talent, the Lions want to be build on depth. In fact, Campbell said that depth is maybe more important than a "check-the-box true starter (if) you've got you’ve got nobody else to follow."
"We would rather have the depth, because in this league, everybody gets hurt," He said. "That’s just the nature of it. We’ve gone through it for three years, so it’s very impotent to us. And they gotta be the right guys and players that fit a certain role."
The Lions will import a few needed pieces next month in free agency. They're not blind to their own needs, cornerback and defensive lineman chief among them. But the biggest stars they sign this offseason are likely already here.