Capt. James Tiberius Kirk used to boldly go where no one has gone before — and never apologized for splitting the infinitive.
In “The Scarlet Letter,” Pearl Prynne gave the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale a literary tongue-lashing for being a deadbeat dad when she told him: “Thou wast not bold! – thou wast not true!”
And as far back as 2 A.D., the Roman poet Ovid told us “Venus, like Fortune, favors the bold.”
So we have plenty of precedent for bold action and where it can take you. Still, I knew it was asking a lot to expect Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes to channel Capt. Kirk’s boldness during his predraft news conference Thursday.
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After all, the SS Allen Park is lot less like the USS Enterprise and a lot more like the RMS Titanic.
Even though I think he knew the answer after watching Holmes select three straight linemen in his first NFL draft as a GM, I asked him about his draft philosophy and whether he thinks of himself as being patient or if he’s willing to be bold and take a chance on a talented player who may not be an ideal fit.
“If there’s a player that we have buy-in and we want, I’m going to try to get that player,” he said. “That’s just bottom line. There is value in being patient and sitting back. You’ve just got to assess where the value is on your draft board and what the volume and depth is.
“If the conviction is that high, yeah, you can’t just sit, wait and be patient and see if that player’s going to be there or not. Sometimes you’ve got to be aggressive and go and get him. That’s how I stand often. Now there are not a lot of those players throughout the draft always, but when that player is identified, I’ll always be aggressive.”
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Holmes’ answer was careful and measured and made sense, even though we may never know what the “value is on (his) draft board” and where he keeps the conviction meter in the Lions’ war room. Funny how after a pick is made, every team’s personnel department magically reaches unanimous consensus.
But we can’t forget that Holmes may actually have a bold streak in him, if we believe that he reportedly called the Atlanta Falcons to trade up from No. 7 to No. 4 so that he could draft receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who had 1,455 yards, made the Pro Bowl, was named offensive rookie of the year and was a key reason the Cincinnati Bengals got to the Super Bowl.
When Holmes didn’t get Chase, he passed on Heisman Trophy winner DeVonta Smith, who was drafted 10th and had a strong rookie season in Philadelphia with 915 yards and five touchdowns. After Smith was gone, Holmes watched 13 more receivers get drafted until he selected Amon-Ra St. Brown in the fourth round, one of the steals of the draft as the 112th overall pick whose 912 yards and five TDs matched Smith’s production at fraction of the cost in draft capital.
The first draft in a rebuild is a freebie for anyone, let alone a first-time GM like Holmes. But after one season, and a bad one that resulted in three wins and the midseason demotion and eventual dismissal of the offensive coordinator, a GM should have more insight that informs and perhaps influences his draft strategy. Something along the lines of … CAN YOU PLEASE WIN MORE THAN THREE DANG GAMES?
That’s what led me to my next question for Holmes. I wanted to know if winning only three games had sped up his timeline for winning and increased his willingness to be bold and take a chance on a player, perhaps even using some of those eight draft picks to move up and get him.
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“The season didn’t really speed that up a little bit,” he said. “… That three-win season taught us patience. It definitely taught me patience and we had to practice a lot of patience through that three-win season and through a lot of adverse moments that I’ve shared with you all previously.
“But (through) that patience, just learned through those adverse moments during that three-win season you definitely have to practice it in the other phases of the player-acquisition process and it’s about having belief and confidence in our plan, which we do.”
At some point after this, someone asked about the Lions’ interested in receiver Deebo Samuel, who recently requested a trade out of San Francisco. Holmes played it cool there and said little about Samuel, and obviously the Lions were barely involved in the white-hot market for free-agent receivers. And across the board in free agency, Holmes and the Lions were conservative and patient — perhaps too patient.
“But yeah, you just don’t want to be irrational at any points and lose your patience,” Holmes said about willingness to make a big move in the draft to make up for a season of failure. “So yeah, I think patience is important to have just because you don’t want to suffer from the resulting bias and just kind of change your plan and philosophy and just go the other route because something happened that you didn’t want to happen.”
I understand Holmes wants to build a solid foundation for the roster, because most GMs think they’re constructing the Ottoman empire, or at the very least the next Patriots dynasty. It usually doesn’t come to fruition for most teams because the reality of the NFL is that time is short and usually much shorter than anyone thinks.
Just about every GM and coach gets two years, but isn’t guaranteed a third. If the Lions go into Week 18 again this season with less than a handful of wins and are gifted a victory by a playoff team resting starters, no one’s going to want to hear about Holmes’ ability to be patient and watch water come to a boil. They’re going to want to throw him and Dan Campbell on the hot seat.
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The Lions have enough draft capital, including three of the first 34 picks, to pretty much do whatever they want this year, like moving up to get a quarterback with their second pick. The popular thinking is that this draft doesn’t feature elite quarterbacks, so maybe the Lions should trade down and stockpile picks for next year, when they can really make a move and trade up to get a sure-fire star QB like Ryan Leaf, Robert Griffin III or Mitchell Trubisky … sorry, I mean C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young or Anthony Richardson.
It’s obvious no one really knows anything about drafting quarterbacks. Right, Tom Brady? And let’s not forget that. Because even after winning six Super Bowls, Brady proved that sometimes you can’t wait for things to happen and you have to be willing to boldly go, whether that’s leaving a dynasty or moving up in the draft order.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.