The Lions Are Doing Something Different This Offseason
You want to know what screams urgency? It’s not what Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell are doing this offseason. It’s what they’re not doing.
This is a different Detroit Lions franchise making different decisions, and if you’ve been watching this team long enough, you know that should get your attention. When a regime that has earned our trust starts changing the playbook, there’s usually a damn good reason.
Fort Knox Has Nothing on Allen Park
The Lions turned draft prep into a classified operation this year. For years, we could track down half or more of their top-30 meetings through various sources. This year they became Fort Knox.
We only found out about six of their meetings. They drafted three of those guys (Moore, Rolder, and West). That’s not coincidence, that’s intentional.
They also canceled their local pro day, something they’ve done every single year. Then Holmes did something that should tell you everything about where his head was: he skipped the annual league meetings to stay back and work on the draft.
Holmes put it plainly: “I take every Draft serious. I just feel like it’s too critical and too important. I will say, it was probably a little bit more fire. Like you said, I know people like – you guys know about me not going to the (League) Meetings just to kind of work on some other things to make sure this – it was stuff like that. But when you miss the playoffs, that might be the kick in the rear that you need at times.”
He continued: “That right there I had written up on my office wall and all that kind of stuff. Not saying that I don’t have fire in other Drafts, but it was just a little bit more – the urgency just needed to be pushed up on on everything. It was just a little bit more fire to the intensity on this one.”
Mental and Physical Health Are Now Priorities
The NFL mandated that all 32 teams employ mental health professionals going forward. The good news? The Lions have been doing something like this for years already. But it’s good to see they’ll now have someone else on staff.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the Lions won’t have a rookie minicamp this year. I cannot remember the last time this team did not have one, regardless of who the GM or head coach was.
It might seem weird how mental health connects to that, but think about it. You’re not overloading these rookies when they already have a lot more to do than meets the eye at this time of year. There are much better ways to get acclimated to the team than coming in and working with a bunch of guys who are getting tryouts and none of the players they’ll actually play with.
It’s a physical lifesaver too. Here’s another way to limit injuries. On top of that, the Lions won’t do joint practices this summer. These practices have been full-bore games essentially, and the Lions were doing them up to three sets a summer with practices twice a week.
The Lions are putting forth a big push towards having a healthy football team and a concentrated team. The goal is to never have what happened in 2025 happen again.
This is Holmes and Campbell learning from their mistakes and adjusting accordingly. That’s what good coaches and GMs do. And yes, I know what you’re thinking – we’ve been burned by “new approaches” before. But this isn’t the Matt Millen era making desperate changes. This is a proven regime fine-tuning their process.
Are you buying into Holmes and Campbell’s new approach or does changing the routine make you nervous? Drop your take below.
