In less than a week, Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes and coach Dan Campbell will put their heads together and create an initial 53-man roster for the 2025 season. As always, it’s going to involve some very tough decisions, and it’s considered one of the most miserable days on the job for both.
As we continue to try and make our best predictions for what is going to happen, Holmes has been doing the media rounds. And if you’re paying attention, he keeps dropping the same exact hint about
how they are going to approach these roster cuts a little differently.
This week, Kay Adams showed up at Lions camp, and during her interview of Holmes, the Lions general manager said this:
“What’s gotten really hard—and it’s really been visible this year—is that in the past, especially in our first couple years, we had a lot of just young, developmental players that we really liked and we had a lot of room for. And as the guys have made these leaps and bounds and the talent has gotten better, it’s hard to always find room for those young, developmental guys.”
A week earlier, Holmes basically said the identical thing to ESPN’s Kevin Clark:
“What’s becoming harder is the young, developmental players that we’ve always liked and liked since we’ve been here, when we first got here, we had room for all of those guys. So now, as the roster is improved and contracts have been distributed out, it’s become a little bit harder to just keep as many of those guys.”
And prior to that, he said this to 97.1 The Ticket:
“As the roster has improved—and we first started seeing those challenges in the draft, really, on the approach that we took—is that it’s getting harder and harder for a lot of the young guys. Just because when you add more veterans, you have better players that are going into their second and third year, you want to really give these guys time to develop and all that, but sometimes you just might not. Because (with) me and Dan (Campbell), the best guy is going to play. The best man is going to make the team”
The message is clear: the Lions no longer have the space on their roster to fill it with developmental players. They’re simply too good.
Now, translating this into specific roster decisions is a little tougher. Does this simply mean that Detroit can no longer invest a roster spot on a UDFA or late-round draft picks they’d normally hang onto for development? Or does this mean they’re preparing to pull the plug on long-term developmental players? Can they no longer wait out the development of guys like Brodric Martin, Hendon Hooker, or even Giovanni Manu?
Many have pointed out Holmes’ reputation of holding onto his own draft picks longer than he should. The insinuation being that he gives a longer leash to his own draft picks. Of his 36 draft picks since 2021, only six are no longer on the roster, and five of those six were either fifth, sixth or seventh-round selections (Ifeatu Melifonwu—third-round pick—being the lone exception)
But what Holmes may be implying here is that early on, the Lions had the luxury of time and roster spots to see out their development all the way through. Now, with a stacked roster and a championship on their mind, that luxury is no longer there.
So keep all of this in mind in the days leading up to the NFL roster cuts deadline, which is Tuesday, August 26 at 4 p.m. ET.
