Brad Holmes Unlikely to Pursue Star Pass Rusher in Offseason Moves
It doesn’t seem like Lions General Manager Brad Holmes is willing to make a big splash this offseason. While Detroit has been linked to star pass rushers in trade and free agency, Holmes was direct when asked at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine if he planned to add another: “Probably not.” His response followed his comments on how hard it is to find talented edge rushers, especially after losing Aidan Hutchinson mid-season to a fractured leg. “It’s hard. There’s not a lot of those guys available,” Brad Holmes said. “And so just because we lost a star pass rusher due to injury, that doesn’t mean that other teams are going to say, ‘Hey, we have a star pass rusher. I know you lost one, but we have one. Would you like to have this one?’ “No, that’s a star pass rush for that team, and they’re trying to win games. So, and it’s not just a trade deadline, it’s, you know, free agency, during the year. Those guys are hard to find, you know, that’s why it’s called a premium position. Those guys are hard to acquire, and it’s hard to keep them financially, you know. Again, we have one that’s due for an extension, and we’ve already kind of gotten to the planning stages about him already. So when you talk about adding another one, it’s like, well, alright, can you financially add another one? Because you want to add the other one on top of everything else that you have, and that makes it tough.”
