If you look at any Detroit Lions mock draft these days, you\u2019ll almost certainly see an offensive tackle or defensive end mocked to them with a first or second-round pick (or both). It\u2019s almost universally viewed as the team\u2019s biggest needs going into next week 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
But during his pre-draft press conference on Monday, Lions general manager Brad Holmes insisted that he believes the roster is in a position where they don\u2019t have to draft either of those positions.<\/p>\n
In free agency, the Lions signed former Dolphins offensive tackle Larry Borom to a one-year, $5 million deal, and defensive end DJ Wonnum to a one-year, $3 million deal. Holmes believes those players\u2014who have started 38 and 54 games respectively\u2014have put the Lions in a good position in the draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said in the past, I thought Borom put out good tape this year. I don\u2019t foresee that\u2014I don\u2019t have a crystal ball\u2014but from what (the) last thing I saw on tape (was) I do think that he\u2019s got starter-level ability and same as Wonnum,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cYou\u2019re talking about guys that have been starters in the NFL, but you just kinda look at where the trend is going, where the arrow is going. The last time, they\u2019re still young, but we feel good about both of them. So we don\u2019t feel like we have to supplement them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, Holmes admitted that offensive tackle is one of those positions where you cannot get enough help, and even went as far as saying there are some good prospects in this year\u2019s draft at that position.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at it like an offensive tackle or you call that \u2018premium position\u2019 category,\u2019 I don\u2019t think you can ever really have enough of them Those guys are hard to find, but you\u2019ve got to make sure that you get the right one. I think there are some good ones (in this draft). We\u2019ll just kinda see how it falls.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he\u2019s done in the past, Holmes warned against the dangers of chasing needs. He insisted the team will not draft a player just because of the position he plays.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never want to feel that way when you select a player. You pass up a really good player that you liked even more but there is a question mark on your roster so you just go ahead and you get that player that you weren\u2019t as excited about. I know for me, it\u2019s hard to sleep at night when you do that,\u201d Holmes said.<\/p>\n
Is this just Holmes defending the guys he added in free agency, or will the Lions really approach the draft not believing they\u2019ll need to add a starting-capable offensive tackle and\/or defensive end? We\u2019ll find out in less than two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you look at any Detroit Lions mock draft these days, you\u2019ll almost certainly see an offensive tackle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[16911,4992,4993,349,99],"class_list":["post-582068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-draft","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-detroit-lions-quotes","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}