Brad Holmes is a master of saying a whole lot of words without actually saying anything. Those who listened to Brad Holmes’ press conference on September 2 know what I’m talking about. There is very little to be gathered from this presser.
I have no criticism of Holmes for not revealing anything. When it comes to these press conferences, “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”
Holmes will disappear for a while as this is probably the last we hear from him until after the season. Here are some of his quotes with my analysis.
Regarding Isiah Pacheco’s injury
We’re still excited about him to get back.
I don’t want to put a timetable on it right now.
Will Pacheco be back this season?
That’s the hope.
It’s hard to read Holmes here. So let’s review the facts:
Pacheco somehow hurt his back in mid-August while not practicing due to a knee MCL injury.
He was placed on IR, which puts him out until at least October 11.
This is going to be a 2-month back recovery, and possibly much longer.
Based on the long timeline, there is high concern for a spine injury that could be season-ending. Even if he is able to return, his abilities as a running back could see a big drop-off. Pacheco’s productivity has already seen productivity drop-offs in recent seasons, as I detailed in his free agent medical report…
Here are some unanswered questions about Pacheco:
How did he hurt his back while not practicing? Weightlifting? Doing something non-football related? Motor vehicle accident?
Was this a repetitive, accumulation injury (e.g. spondylolysis, disc herniation) or an acute injury (e.g. transverse process fracture, spinous process fracture)?
Was there a pre-existing back issue that was just discovered?
As I wrote on X, the Lions have had some mysterious back injuries the past two seasons:
Payton Turner’s injury is very curious because Dan Campbell initially said it was nothing serious. We still don’t know anything about Josh Paschal’s mystery back surgery that put him on NFI and caused him to miss all of last year. We learned nothing about LaPorta’s back during the season, but at least we know something about it now…
Maybe someday we’ll get some answers about Payton Turner and Isiah Pacheco, but don’t count on it.
Why the delay to place Pacheco on IR?
With the information that we had, that’s why we decided to do it when we did it.
This word salad is genius, as it tells us absolutely nothing. There wasn’t an obvious reason to wait to put Pacheco on IR two days after the cutdown. While a setback or further injury during those two days is highly unlikely, it is possible.
Maybe there was some kind of roster management or financial reason for it, but Holmes explained nothing.
Regarding signing players who may be considered injury-prone
Football’s a physical game and injuries occur. You can sign a player that’s never really missed much time and something can happen at any point.
Do you consider the injury history of players before acquisition?
Yeah.
Holmes was in no mood to discuss his strategy regarding injury histories. I don’t blame him. He’s said in the past that injury histories are a factor in evaluation, which of course they are. The only question is to what extent.
Injury histories are not a black-and-white issue - every player has a history and it’s always judged on a case-by-case basis. There is a risk/reward with every player - sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. Luck is also a huge factor.
It’s very likely Holmes has dialed back how much risk he is willing to take. If you review the Lions 2026 draft, all the picks were on the lower end of the medical concern spectrum. Visit my Lions Rookie Medical Report Page for the full analyses.
This offseason in free agency, the Lions favored reliability by jettisoning most of their older, high-risk players…
Contract extensions for Sam LaPorta and Brian Branch?
We still want to keep those guys around. There’s a couple factors that we still got to sort through.
Almost certainly, those “factors” are the health considerations. Earlier this offseason, Dan Campbell said that the team wanted some proof of health before handing out extensions. Thus, I wouldn’t expect to hear about any extensions until each player has a few games under his belt, and even then, the Lions may decline.
I went in-depth into my concerns with extending LaPorta in this July mailbag…
When will Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph be back?
We still have confidence that they will come back. Just can’t offer a timeline.
Branch is certainly coming back from his Achilles at some point. With Joseph, I don’t see how Holmes can truly have any confidence in a return since Joseph hasn’t been able to even get through a practice since last October - 11 months ago.
Now, onto the latest Lions transactions…
Lions waive Seth McLaughlin, C & Jabari Small, RB
Both of these players had recent concussions that likely played a factor in their waivers.
Seth McLaughlin had a concussion in practice around August 27. For a typical concussion, he should be available in plenty of time for Week 1. It’s possible we see him return to the practice squad.
I wrote about my major concussion concerns for Jabari Small a couple days ago. Thus, his waiver is not a surprise. It’s possible he could return to the team, but the Lions may be wise to choose a RB with a lower medical concern. A couple options are Trayveon Williams and Raheem Blackshear who both got a lot of preseason carries for the Lions.