Brad Holmes postseason press conference analysis
Comments on Decker, Ragnow, Joseph, LaPorta, Branch, Montgomery and more
After a disappointing season, Brad Holmes will be laser-focused this offseason on getting the team back into Super Bowl contention. There are a lot of excellent core players in place, but there are some big holes in the roster - some pre-existing, some created by injury - that sunk the 2025 ship…
I’m sorry that I didn’t build you a stronger ship, young Rose.
-Titanic
Unlike the doomed Titanic architect, the Lions architect, Brad Holmes, will get a chance to rebuild.
Watch his full press conference here:
Now, some of Brad Holmes’ quotes along with my thoughts:
Taylor Decker retirement decision
I’m not sure what Decker is going to decide to do. Not only would [the OT position] have to be urgent this offseason but it’s been urgent in the past… It would be irresponsible to go into it thinking we drafted a developmental player [Manu] 2 years ago thinking he’s going to be the guy.
Sounds like Holmes is well aware of the urgency of the OT position and will aggressively address it this offseason. Not a surprise given Decker’s recent health issues he has battled through.
A big free agent, trade, or 1st-round pick for an OT seem likely to happen.
When did he learn when Frank Ragnow was going to retire?
It was after the draft…. Not saying there was no bread crumbs. It’s something we knew that we needed to prepare for.
Have you made any contact with Ragnow? Any chance of Ragnow coming back?
After that whole thing, we just went our separate ways. I’m sure a lot of the guys still keep contact with him. Nothing concrete about seeing if he wants to give it a go again.
Holmes implies there has been no communication with Ragnow since the attempted comeback, which is curious, but also jibes with how strange the whole comeback situation played out.
Here is the official statement of Ragnow’s failed comeback which raised eyebrows at the time:
The final paragraph reads more like an obituary than a temporary parting. All these signs suggest some kind of rift between the Lions and Ragnow. Sure feels like there is more to the story here than just a “hamstring” injury.
I agree that the timing of his original retirement as well as the timing of his attempted comeback both could have caused discontent with the team.
Who will play center next season?
Tate is obviously an option. He’s done it before. He did it at OTA’s.
It certainly appears that the fishing ship has sailed on Ragnow which makes the center position a very high priority this offseason. Graham Glasgow manned the position in 2025 but has been affected by knee issues and will be 34 at the start of the 2026 season.
Giovanni Manu
Manu, he’s taken steps. We’re going to see how he comes back in OTA’s. He’s going to have to beat somebody out.
Holmes didn’t discuss Manu’s knee injury that basically ended his season after Week 5. Even though Manu was able to return to limited practice for the final 3 weeks of the season, it’s unknown what his diagnosis and prognosis are. He never was able to get to a full practice before season end.
A 3+ month recovery for a knee issue is no small matter. Not only is his ability a question mark, but so is his health.
Sam LaPorta and Brian Branch injuries
The priorities for those players has not changed but more medical information has to be gathered. In terms of them suffering season ending injuries and the decisions we need to make off of that, there’s just a lot more information that we need to get.
Holmes dodges the health questions here for LaPorta and Branch. At this point, the Lions should have a pretty good grasp of their health issues - it’s their recovery that is the uncertainty.
Kerby Joseph’s knee
You’re trying to urgently get healthy enough to play during the season. That’s the reason why we waited so long to put him on IR, because he was making strides and progress at different points of the season. Maybe another week, maybe another 2 weeks. Then he had that last recent setback late.
Holmes explains the reasoning for Joseph’s delayed placement on IR. He confirms that there was hope Joseph would be able to return much earlier, but the recovery didn’t go as planned. This fits my suspicion of articular cartilage damage which has an unpredictable recovery.
Timing of when they found out about Joseph’s knee issue
It’s one of those things that just popped up on us. It just happened. It sucks when it happens like that. All we can do is adjust and see how healthy he can get.
Early in training camp, he looked like he was Kerby, but then it started going down from there.
Holmes basically confirms that Joseph’s knee issue was present during training camp. It turned out to be a much bigger issue than initially thought.
Should you have found out about the knee before Joseph signed his contract during his physical?
In a perfect world that would have been nice. In terms of passing exit physicals, we felt that we had the information and we signed him to an extension.
When it comes to articular cartilage wear-and-tear, it can be a gradual process so there isn’t necessary going to be a firm start date. Maybe there were symptoms and signs on imaging prior to the contract extension; maybe there were not. Pain and discomfort can’t be measured so there is only so much information that medical can gather.
Even if there were warning signs, that doesn’t necessarily mean that giving out the contract was a bad idea. Giving out big contracts always carries some risk… sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
With Joseph and Branch injured, the needs at the safety position
We’re going to need to get more information from where the players are at. When you make certain decisions when it comes to medical, you just see the final result - is the player available or not, but we get so much updates on a daily, weekly basis in terms of the progression the players are making and that informs the decisions we make.
The Lions will certainly keep close track of the recoveries of their 2 star safeties. The problem is they likely won’t have a good idea about their outcome until way after free agency (March) and the draft (April).
Thus this offseason, Holmes may need to presume needing at least 1 more quality starter at safety, and definitely multiple viable backups.
The theory that the safety position might be more prone to injuries is interesting. You have relatively small players taking some huge hits.
Thomas Harper
He played a lot this year. He did an admirable job. We know he can be a depth role if needed.
Harper is signed through 2026 but has significant reliability concerns going forward after 2 concussions in December. It took 17 days to return to play from the first concussion. He never returned from the second concussion as the season ended 10 days later.
The concern is that his threshold for getting a future concussion is lowered. And if he does get a concussion, he will project to miss at least 2 games, if not more.
For a player that isn’t a star, the uncertainty may not be worth it.
There are major concerns at the safety position going into 2026. Branch may not be back until mid-season. Joseph may not be back, period. Harper has a significant concussion concern. Daniel Thomas, Jalen Mills, Erick Hallett, and Avonte Maddox are free agents.
The Lions 7th-round rookie, Dan Jackson, missed the entire season on IR due to a mystery “leg” injury suffered in training camp. Since Jackson was placed on IR before the cutdown date, he was not eligible to return.
Hopefully, Jackson was simply placed on IR for roster management reasons and his injury isn’t actually anything serious.
Do you expect David Montgomery to be here next year?
What is the best plan for him going forward? Is it somewhere else? Just really appreciate everything he has done for us, if it does end up going that way. I hope it doesn’t because we love David Montgomery. Wish we would have been able to get more utilization from him.
He deserves to be in a situation where his skill set can be utilized. We’d love for it to be here. But if it can’t be here. You have to just see what you can work out the best for him.
Holmes statements about the beloved Knuckles really surprised me. I had fully expected DMo to be back with the team next season. It sure sounds like Holmes also would strongly prefer this as well.
The Lions hold his rights for another 2 seasons so as long as Montgomery also wants to be back, he would be back. All this adds up to the suspicion that Montgomery is unhappy with his utilization and wants out.
He was certainly underutilized which was partly due to Dan Campbell falling in love with Jahmyr Gibbs’ explosive potential… and partly due to an inconsistent offensive line that had trouble sustaining drives. Both those issues are correctable.
The fact that Holmes is already talking about Montgomery playing somewhere else is an ominous signal. We saw this in training camp when Dan Campbell talked about Hendon Hooker possibly needing a fresh start somewhere else… and then was released soon after.
Whether the Lions can repair the relationship with Montgomery remains to be seen but it doesn’t sound promising based on Holmes’ tone and words.
From a health standpoint, I see no reason the Lions would want to move on from Montgomery who looked great this season after recovering from his MCL in December 2024. He will play next season at age 29 which isn’t a big deal.
I would strongly prefer to see Montgomery back with the team and getting a more even split of carries. Gibbs’ incredible run of good health can’t be taken for granted, so having at least 2 quality RB’s is crucial if the Lions want to get the Super Bowl ship sailing again.