Brad Holmes doesn't get it. When he hears the media and the fans fixate on the Lions' need for an edge rusher, he points to the elite edge rusher who's already on their roster: Aidan Hutchinson. When he hears them clamor for the Lions to add another, "how come another team doesn’t have two elite ones?" he asks.
"Well, we’ve talked about it. They’re hard to find, they’re hard to get, they’re hard to acquire," Holmes said Tuesday on 97.1 The Ticket. "But I have felt like ever since we acquired Aidan Hutchinson, as great of a player as he is, I always felt like the fan base is almost mad. Like, they’re mad because we have Aidan Hutchinson, and because he’s so good, well, why don’t you have two of them?"
Holmes said he's curious to know if the respective GM's in the other five or six media markets with an elite edge rusher are being asked as much as he is about adding another player at the position: "You have an elite one. But all you’re asking about is, well, how come you don’t have another one?"
"And now you get into, well, are you trying to build a football team? Or are you trying to just pair (defensive) ends? Yes, like I’ve said all the time, we would love to have three or four of them, but that’s not reality all the time," Holmes said.
The Lions did draft a highly-productive defensive end this year in Boise State's Ahmed Hassanein, but not until the sixth round. Hassanein had 22 sacks and 33 tackles for loss over the last two seasons, and ranked fourth in the country last year in quarterback pressures. And they did try to trade up for an edge rusher earlier in the draft, likely in the second round.
So Holmes can acknowledge that it's an important position of need.
"I’ve said before, you can draft an edge in every round. That’s easy, but the one that fits what we’re looking for and fits those criteria, the pool is a lot smaller than what you would think," said Holmes. "It just has to line up."
For example, when the Lions drafted defensive tackle Tyleik Williams at No. 28, "we just had him rated higher than some other players at that, let’s call it, defensive end position," said Holmes. "And when you’re trying to build a football team, you’re trying to get the best player."
The Lions traded up twice on Day 2 of the draft: three spots in the second round for guard Tat Ratledge and 32 spots in the third round for receiver Isaac TeSlaa, the latter of which cost them two future third-rounders. Holmes said those trades "just happened to be the two that we were able to do out of about 30 attempts." He said he even thought about trading a future second-rounder for the right player, but couldn't find a partner willing to drop as far as the Lions' third-round pick at 102 in a shallower draft than normal.
"Because the further you go down, the talent pool and the depth on that team’s board is going to drop as well," said Holmes.
As for the local obsession with the Lions' outlook at edge rusher, "I don’t understand it," Holmes said.
The obsession has less to do with Hutchinson than the players on the opposite end of the defensive line. Right now, Detroit's other starting edge is Marcus Davenport, who's missed 28 games the last two seasons and had a half-sack in his last healthy season. And the Lions' options behind Davenport are slim, from Josh Paschal to Al-Quadin Muhammad. Hassanein is raw and can't be counted on as a rookie. The Lions could still bring back free agent Za'Darius Smith.
Hutchinson (broken leg) and Davenport (torn triceps) both missed most of last season as the Lions faced an avalanche of injuries on defense. They're banking on better health this year. Holmes said he does understand that "you want more production. And if you count 2024 where we had a litany of injuries at that one position, among other spots, I can understand that with the recency bias."
"At one point we had five injured defensive ends, so that was a little bit of an anomaly," said Holmes. "And then, yeah, we had to find someone to finish out the season and we made the trade for Za’Darius, and then obviously we’ve been steadily improving the roster year by year. So I do understand the attrition and depth component of it, but again, it has to all line up as well."
There's a difference, Holmes reiterated, in acquiring any old edge rusher and one who "fits the requirements that we’re looking for in a player."
"That’s a whole different story. Because if you draft that edge that’s not contributing to the level that we would all like, what’s next? ‘Oh, find another edge rusher, because that one wasn’t good enough.’ Well, all we needed to do was draft one, right? But if that player isn’t performing or he’s not starting, if he’s a backup, you gotta look into all of those things."