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Six Takeaways From Brad Holmes’ Lions 2025 Pre-Draft Media Session

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Six Takeaways From Brad Holmes’ Lions 2025 Pre-Draft Media Session


Here are six takeaways from Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes, who spoke to reporters Thursday morning for his annual pre-draft media session.

Detroit’s front office has been steadfast in their approach and will not change it based on what supporters or pundits believe the team should do.

Holmes indicated the team will not reach for any players and again reiterated the goal is to select the best player who fits what the coaching staff and front office is trying to accomplish.

Holmes noted, “So, we’re not going to reach on players just to fill a position. That’s what we don’t do.”

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Among the few criticisms Holmes has faced has been his willingness to select developmental prospects in the draft.

With the Lions being where they are in their pursuit of a Super Bowl, it has become increasingly difficult for developmental players to reach the standard required of them to make the roster.

While the Lions still want to have players capable of growing in their pipeline, they also acknowledge that with the talent on their roster already, it will be difficult for these types of talents to ultimately break camp with the team.

“We don’t really go into like, ‘Man we’ve got to get high floor, ready to go but the ceiling might be a little lower.’ Or, ‘We’re just going to take developmental guys.’ There’s no problem taking a developmental guy,” Holmes said. “Like I said, some of these guys, man you can take a late-round pick and it’s got to be the right guy or it’s going to be hard to make the roster.”

Holmes is aligned with head coach Dan Campbell in the desire to get younger in the wide receivers room.

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“The only thing about receiver is I always felt like receiver is one of the more voluminous positions in each draft, said Holmes. “It’s probably more of those guys that are veteran free agents that are available after the draft as well. But yeah, just to add one, just to continue to add youth. We’re happy with the guys we have. Very happy with the guys that we have, but obviously it’d be great to get younger.”

The Los Angeles Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars have recently made the decision to cease conducting official top-30 visits with draft prospects.

Even though his mentor Les Snead is doing away with meetings, Holmes still finds value in learning more than just about what a player can bring to the football field. Snead’s approach has been carried by new Jaguars GM James Gladstone, who worked under him with the Rams prior to taking his new position.

Detroit’s general manager noted prospects are human beings and pre-draft meetings allow the coaching staff and front office a chance to “dig deeper” about the human being, not just the athlete who is expected to perform.

The team agrees the class of defensive ends is fairly solid and could even have enough depth to allow for a trade down in the draft.

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Detroit is open to every option available, but the class of defensive lineman available this year should have enough depth to allow Holmes the flexibility to select another position on Day 1 of the draft.

“It might be an opportunity to trade back if that position is there,” said Holmes. “But yeah, there’s some good football players there.”

Holmes brought up some frustrations he has felt wondering why fans want to know so much about what the team’s plans are.

He used an analogy of fans attending movies as a way to express that he desired for a slight decline in the intense desire for fans and media to know each and every detail regarding the team’s plans.

Rather than the intense analysis that often accompanies the lead-up to the big event, Holmes called for a more exciting approach.

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Why a Detroit family’s $300 brick repair job turned into a fraud investigation

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Why a Detroit family’s 0 brick repair job turned into a fraud investigation


DETROIT – What started as a seemingly routine home repair quickly unraveled into something far more troubling for one Detroit family.

A man appeared to be posing as a contractor — arriving in construction gear and accompanied by two teens — showed up April 7 at a west side Detroit home, offering to do brick work for about $300. But according to the homeowner’s daughter, the situation started to seem fishy — and expensive — fast.

Tameka Kelly said the trio told her 76-year-old mother they were with “State Line Construction” and began working almost immediately.

“I just felt used and taken advantage of,” Kelly said, looking back at the situation.

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“They kept working — kept putting cement down, I said, ‘you might want to tell them to stop.’ He said, ‘well right now it’s $1129.’ I said, ‘my mother‘s not paying you $1000,’” Kelly said.

At one point, the man even offered to repair the bottom of the home’s wheelchair ramp — something Kelly said her sister, who lives with her mother, relies on daily. But she refused because something just didn’t sit right.

“I gave him the $300,” Kelly said, hoping they would just leave. “I thought, well, he knows where my mom lives. I don’t want him coming back trying to do something to my mom‘s house or something to our vehicles.”

Kelly later tried to confront the man, who identified himself as Brian Lopez, and called the number on the invoice.

“When I called he was like, ‘no no no brickwork no brickwork’ I said, ‘yes you did. You were just here. I said I don’t forget a voice,’” she said.

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But the biggest red flag came when she looked closer at the address listed on the invoice.

The address — 70 West Maple in Troy — turned out to be a McDonald’s.

“I really got upset when I found out that address was to a McDonald’s,” Kelly said.

Initially, Kelly said when she tried to file a report with Detroit police, she said they told her the situation was a civil matter and she could not file one. She then filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.

Now, Detroit police tell Local 4 they will be taking Kelly’s fraud report, and once that is completed, an investigation will follow.

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State Line initially told Local 4 they were not familiar with a Brian Lopez, then an attorney for State Line construction told Local 4 that, after checking the company’s records, there is no Brian Lopez that works for the company. As a matter of fact, the attorney said, State Line Construction does not do cement or residential construction. He said they focus on electrical work.

Attempts by Local 4 to reach the man going by the name Brian Lopez with the number given were unsuccessful.

Kelly said she felt compelled to speak up to prevent others from falling victim.

“I’m really upset about it, and I don’t want it to happen to anybody else,” she said.

Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.

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Detroit Pistons already facing must-win Game 2 vs Orlando Magic

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Detroit Pistons already facing must-win Game 2 vs Orlando Magic


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How in the world did things get so bad so fast for the Detroit Pistons?

In just one outing in the 2026 NBA playoffs, they went from top-seeded darlings of the Eastern Conference to punching bags punked by an 8-seed short on rest but long on resilience and toughness.

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“I would say they ‘outphysical-ed’ us today,” Pistons wing Ausar Thompson said after the Orlando Magic stole Game 1 of the first-round NBA playoff series, 112-101, at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday, April 19. “One, because they got more rebounds than us. They forced more turnovers.”

Yes, this was always going to be a physical series. Though you would think the Pistons, owners of the NBA’s second-best defense and playing at home, would have a sizable advantage.

It also should have helped them that they were coming off six days’ rest, as opposed to the Magic coming off winning a play-in game just 47 hours earlier.

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It didn’t help that Pistons star Cade Cunnigham was playing in just his fourth game since suffering a collapsed lung and missing 11 games. He scored a game-high 39 points, but he didn’t operate as smoothly as usual, with just four assists (far off his 9.9-assist season average) while committing three turnovers.

Another indictment of the Pistons’ worrisome play: Tobias Harris (19 points) was Cunningham’s only teammate who scored in double digits. Meanwhile, all five Magic staters did so, led by Paolo Banchero’s 23 points on 8-for-15 shooting.

And just like that, the Magic came out firing, scoring 35 points in the first quarter and never trailing.

“Yeah, just that we came out a little too tight, lax, whatever the word is, maybe both for some of us, but just didn’t come out with the right energy,” Cunningham said. “Gave them life further on. And then, you know, we had to deal with that for the rest of the game. We were better in stints, but can’t dig a hole like that.”

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He’s right. The Pistons can’t dig a hole like that in Game 2 on Wednesday night. Because if they do, and they lose, the Magic would not only have homecourt advantage – they got that with Sunday’s victory – but could close out the series without another win in Detroit, with three of the next four games coming in Orlando.

That’s precisely what makes Game 2 a must-win game for the Pistons. It’s bad enough they lost the opener at LCA, where they were 31-9. But now they’ve let the Magic set a hard-edged tone in the kind of the game that could lead them to steal the series.

“I know that they feel great about this game,” Cunningham said. “This was a big win for them. They came in, they handled their business and stole one on the road. That’s what you want to do in the playoff series.

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“So I’m sure that they feel great about that. Obviously, we’re sick about losing this one. It’s a long series, though. There’s no confidence dropped from us. We know that team. They know us. So it’ll be a long, fun series.”

Cunningham might be right, because the Pistons are arguably the better team. They have enough talent and more depth.

What the Pistons don’t have is the advantage of desperation. They had an excellent season from start to finish, closed with a 60-22 record, and wrapped up the East’s top seed on April 4.

The Magic, meanwhile, have been playing with fire (and not always the good kind) down the stretch, while their fifth-year coach, Jamahl Mosley, entered the postseason on the hottest of hot seats after his squad went 0-7 in road playoff games over the past two seasons.

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To make things even worse, the Magic lost the regular-season finale to the Boston Celtics – well, their reserves, at least – to blow their chance at the 7-seed and homecourt in the play-in tournament. Then Orlando lost to the Philadelphia 76ers (on the road, of course) in the first play-in game before beating the Charlotte Hornets (in Orlando) to advance to a best-of-seven series – featuring four road games – vs. the Pistons.

Now, it looks like the Magic have found their form, as they routed the Hornets, 121-90, and stunned the Pistons. And just like that, Mosley went from hot seat to just plain hot.

Banchero wouldn’t go so far as to say the victory set up his team to steal the series, but he didn’t deny it was exactly the kind of start Orlando needed.

“It’s just a good win for us as a team getting it on the road against a great team and 1-seed,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we got to come back Wednesday, you know, reciprocate it, you know?

“They’re not going to lay down. They’re going to turn it up. So we’ve got to be ready for that. And it’s just one-game-at-a-time mentality, you know? That’s what it’s got to be. It’s the first of four.”

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Yes, it’s just the first of four wins the Magic needs to advance. If the Pistons don’t find an answer quickly, the math – and hardly anyone else – won’t be on their side when they head to Central Florida this weekend.

Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.



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Game 21: Tigers at Red Sox, Garrett Crochet battles both Detroit and the weather

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Game 21: Tigers at Red Sox, Garrett Crochet battles both Detroit and the weather


After getting absolutely annihilated in his previous start on Monday in Minnesota to the tune of 11 runs in just 1.2 innings, Garrett Crochet is set to retake the mound today and convince us all that everything will be fine as far as he and his health are concerned.

Unfortunately, he won’t just be battling the Tigers. Mother Nature is once again destined to play a roll in today’s match up, and here’s how the radar looks inside of an hour from first pitch:

The good news is the initial batch of heavier precipitation has moved out and east of Boston, but more unsettled weather still lurks to the west ahead of a slow moving front. That mess will push through eastern Massachusetts over the next several hours, filling in the current dry slot. While this incoming precipitation won’t be as heavy as what fell at times earlier today, it will come attached with colder and windier conditions, so a miserable weather game lies ahead (if they even try and play through it at all — The Yankees did not and waited around for three hours before starting their game against the Royals at 4:20pm). The other option will be to just wait until after sunset when it will be dryer, but still very cold and windy.

When they do get started, today’s lineup includes Roman Anthony leading off in leftfield, Andruw Monasterio at first base, and Jarren Duran, Masataka Yoshida, and Marcelo Mayer all starting on the bench with an opposing left-handed starter on the mound in Framber Valdez for Detroit.

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OTM’s own pitching guru Jacob Roy will be around later to handle the postgame wrap and tell us if we should should be freaking out or breathing a sigh a relief when it comes to Crochet.



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