The Detroit Lions made two significant draft mistakes back in 2023. For an ascending team, the front office took a chance on two players who were not considered immediate impact players.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Detroit nearly missed the playoffs, and entered the 2023 season with a surge of positive momentum.<\/p>\n
Not only did Hendon Hooker and Brodric Martin not pan out, the team used draft capital to move to select Martin with pick No. 96 overall.<\/p>\n
General manager Brad Holmes gave up a fourth-rounder (No. 122 overall) and two fifth-rounders (No. 139 & No. 168) to get back up into the third round to select the defensive lineman.<\/p>\n
Speaking with reporters, Holmes addressed what the team learned from not being successful drafting and developing Hooker and Martin.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll you can do is put all the work in and feel good when you take the player. Look, I think there\u2019s risk involved with every single pick that you do,\u201d said Holmes. \u201cThere was a great definition of risk. Man, I\u2019m drawing a blank on the book. It was one of Morgan Housel\u2019s books. I\u2019m not sure if it was Morgan Housel\u2019s quote, but he said, \u2018Risk is what\u2019s left after you think you\u2019ve thought of everything.\u2019 And I think it\u2019s a very clear, vivid illustration of I don\u2019t know how much more preparation that we could have done when we select these players, but it\u2019s just a respect of the unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holmes continued, \u201cUnfortunately, they did not meet expectations in the timely manner that we would have liked for them to do, but you\u2019ve just got to just look at it. I\u2019m a big self-assessment individual, after I actually review, look at it, analyze it. I think we\u2019ve already identified some areas already. But yeah, you\u2019ve just got to learn, you\u2019ve just got to grow and get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assistant general manager Ray Agnew discussed the human element, and also noted that a change of scenery has the potential to benefit players at times.<\/p>\n
Martin was signed to the practice squad of the Chiefs, while Hooker landed on the practice squad of the Panthers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of easy to pick those two players out. You talk about those two players, we did a lot of work on both of those guys. We believed they had the talent to play in this league. The first thing that comes to my mind is the kid, I think about the kid,\u201d Agnew said. \u201cThe kid, for the first time in his life he\u2019s being told, \u2018You\u2019re not good enough,\u2019 and how\u2019s he doing mentally, how\u2019s he doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cCause every time you get a change of scenery, things could go better for a kid and some kids just need a change of scenery. And maybe that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen for both of those kids. It\u2019s easy to pick those two kids out, but those two kids are talented kids and we did a lot of work on those kids and wish the best for them first and foremost in their new endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was produced by the staff at Detroit Lions On SI. For more, visit si.com\/nfl\/lions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions made two significant draft mistakes back in 2023. For an ascending team, the front office…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,957,6,9,15004],"class_list":{"0":"post-329035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-michigan","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-wayne-county"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115117681538039544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}