Holmes wasn’t predicting TeSlaa would work out as splendidly for the Lions as the St. Brown pick did, but any time you can compare a rookie third-rounder to a three-time Pro Bowler and one of the best all-around receivers in the NFL, that’s a good start.

St. Brown himself glowed about the rookie’s physical play.

“He’s tough, he’s real tough,” the veteran receiver told Adams when asked about TeSlaa. “I love it. He goes in there and digs out safeties. Putting his head in there — maybe a little too much sometimes. I tell him, ‘Take it easy, you don’t want to get hurt, get a concussion.’ But he’s super tough. That’s what I love to see. Then he goes up and makes the contested catch. He’s going to be real good for us. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s fast, he’s smart, he’s bought in. I think as the season goes, he’s just going to keep continuing to get better.”

It’s early, but TeSlaa has already displayed strong hands, a willingness to do the dirty work, and an ability to get open; if the QB play in the preseason had been better for Detroit, the rookie receivers’ counting numbers would be even better. He still needs to get more polish in his route running, particularly from the outside, but even through three preseason games, you can see the seeds of burgeoning ability.

After starting his collegiate career at Hillsdale College, TeSlaa transferred to Arkansas, where he played the past two seasons. In two years, he generated 52 catches for 868 yards and five touchdowns. The lack of production had some looking sideways when Holmes traded up in the third round to snag the wideout.

“That pick, he really represents what we’re all about,” Holmes said. “You have to do a lot of work on him. It requires a lot of work. It would be easy if he had, you know, 90 catches and 1,100 yards in the SEC and all that, but he didn’t, so you had to dig a little bit deeper and watch even more tape and dig deeper into the background.

“The targets that he did have, he took full advantage of them, so when I looked at the past two years of his film, he’s catching every ball with his hands, he’s not dropping anything. … So just seeing all that and then digging deeper into the tape and sitting down with him in a top-30 [visit], I’m just like, are we really just going to go back to production [as an evaluation]? I just feel like it’s a little bit of an easy way out, maybe a little bit more of a lazier narrative. If it’s high production, that doesn’t mean that a player is going to be successful. But I really liked the pick, glad that he’s having a good camp. He’s growing. He’s doing well.”

Whereas St. Brown joined a Lions club devoid of skill players back in 2021, when he earned 90 catches for 912 yards as a rookie, TeSlaa enters a stacked offense. The rookie doesn’t profile as someone who will hit that 900-yard mark in 2025, but he can push veteran Tim Patrick for the WR3 duties. Even if he doesn’t see a ton of passes as the fifth or sixth option on offense, the rookie’s willingness as a blocker could get him an early-season role in an offense that wants to lean on the ground game to open up the passing attack.