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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Jeff Riston here with your daily DLP. It is Monday, April 13. We're ten days out from the twenty twenty six NFL draft in Pittsburgh. If you're planning on going, I will have a show later this week that, will break some things down for you. I was recently in Pittsburgh, and toured the area and, picked up some some local info from some some knowledgeable folks. So we'll go over that as I open the day's Doctor Pepper. By the way, if you're interested in sponsoring the Daily DLP, Doctor Pepper as an example, Founders Brewing, Brewery two four two here in Holland. Good people there. My DMs are open. Email as well. Yeah. Today, obviously, this is coming out later than than typical in the day because, Brad Holmes spoke today, and we knew that Brad Holmes was gonna be speaking. It's his annual pre draft press conference. And this one, I did not go to this one. I have gone pretty much every year in the past, and for me to drive basically three hours each way to Detroit, for a what's typically been a twelve to fifteen minute press conference, Just really wasn't worth my time. Honestly, as someone who doesn't typically ask questions in press conferences, that's just not what not something that I like to do, because I don't like to be the person that steers the story, and and, you know, tries to do that sort of thing. Other people are much better at that than I am, and I let them them do their work with that. And I thought that there were good questions today. I did. I think, obviously, there were some depth things that I, you know, would have appreciated, and I think we veered a little bit from straight draft talk. But and this is one of the takeaways that I have from it, was, Brad wasn't at the NFL owners meetings this year. He stayed at home, stayed back and worked, and he had an explanation for it. And I'm referencing notes here. Pray to god. I can read my handwriting. He skipped the, owners meetings, and he talked about it. It was what he led with. He talked about how in their process of getting ready for the draft and, you know, the the preparation time and the time that it would have been away, He felt like it served him better to stay in Detroit and work with the scouting staff and work on the draft rather than going to the owner's meetings. I don't have a problem with that. I think if if that's where he felt like he was gonna be more focused and more needed in the immediacy, that's fine. Not like the Lions weren't represented there. We had a press conference with Rod Wood there. They had Dan Campbell talk there. Obviously, there were other entities from the Lions that were out there that could function in the GM role if there was one needed at all. And I so I don't I don't really have an I don't take issue with that, but it did make it. So this was the first time that we've talked to Brad since the end of the season, press conference, which came, right right after the the unfortunate way the season ended too early. And so a couple of the questions, and I will, just these are in sort of random order of not necessarily a board city, but things that stood out to me throughout Brad's press conference today. In terms of what are the quotes that he said? And I wanna get this one right. We feel pretty good about, and that's the end of the quote. But he was talking about what players will be available there at seventeen for them. The question was prefaced or staged as, you know, do you have seventeen first round grades in this class? And Brad was like, we're not really there yet, which is him artfully dodging the question as best as he can. He's getting much better at that. I go back to the first time we sat down with Brad for one of these, and he didn't have the the poker face. He's developed that over time, which is great for him, probably good for the Lions. For those of us in the Lions' media, not so much. That's okay. His job is not to serve us or please us. His job is to create a good football team, which does, in fact, serve us and please us greatly. In in just, you know, spanning around the league a little bit, I know, the several other teams have had their their their head coach and or GM, talk recently. And And it's kind of the same answer that everybody else is giving. It's like, well, you know, this isn't, like, the greatest class ever, but we're pretty confident that we can get guys that we like. That's basically what Brad said. And didn't tip his hand on, you know, who and this this leads into the the next observation, actually. He talked about and he's talked about this before, and and I believe it was last year. He he directly stated that he had not taken any calls for trades at that point. They sort of played the same card again this year, and the, direct quote, where is it at here? This is the, this is the time when calls start to happen, but to this point, they haven't happened. And that's not an outright denial of trade talks or anything. But, look, we're ten days out, and this is the time where calls do start to happen. Will they be Brad calling people to go up? Will they be Brad, you know, taking calls for people looking to move back, move up, whatever? That that all remains to be seen. I will say this, and I've learned this from talking to people who cover other teams. The lions are much more, we're gonna let other people call us to figure out the market than it is Brad fishing for deals. And I will I will contrast that with somebody who's on the line staff right now, John Dorsey. When he was the general manager of the Cleveland Browns, I covered that team. He called everybody just, like, putting the feelers out there, like, what might get done, or what might it take to get a deal done here, here, here at various points throughout the draft? That's not that's not what Brad does, and I've got I've gotten that from from enough sources. I strongly believe that that's the truth. We've never actually asked Brad that question. This probably would have been a good question. Like, how do you do you call people first, or do you like, there's a question for next year. There's always better questions. And that's one of the reasons, actually, why I don't ask questions in press conferences typically is because I always think of the better question later after it's over. I'm like, damn. I should've asked that. Or why didn't somebody else ask that? But in the in the room, I'm not thinking about that, other than the natural follow-up questions to to what's being asked by by others. It's interesting how that dynamic happens. It's one of the reasons, again, why press conferences are always a different animal. And Brad Brad press conferences are very different than Dan press conferences. They're very different than D'Amico Ryan's press conferences or, you know, back when I covered the Texas Rick Smith press conferences where he basically, like, told you everything that was gonna happen, and nobody believed him and it wound up being true. Different different GMs, look, they handle their business differently. That's that's part of the fun. There's not a right way or a wrong way either. It just is.

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Speaker 1: He talked about, and this is very close to an exact quote, if I'm reading my writing correctly here. It might make sense to trade a player. It might make sense to trade for a player. There's two ways you can go with this one. The obvious one is that Dexter Lawrence is available. The Giants are shopping him, and he'd be really, really good in a lion's uniform right now. But just the the concept of having a a premium, another premium interior defensive player who can wreak havoc. Can you imagine Ali McNeil, Dexter Lawrence, and Tyler Williams as your interior threesome? My god. That's a threesome I wanna watch. Yeah. Yeah. Then you don't have to worry about drafting a a the interior defensive lineman with whatever pick you want. You can still take one late if you need, you know, depth there, but, you know, Levi is back for another year. Fingers crossed. It is entire body will stay healthy. Hopeful on that. Macay Wingo's still there. There are options there. That'd be fun. What would it take? Would the Lions be the highest bidder? Like, it I to answer, Brad, yes. It would make sense to explore a trade for next absolutely. Be foolish not to consider it. Now is it there's a lot of things that have to happen for that to become reality. But the other side of the coin, to trade a player, they got they got dudes who need extensions, a lot of them, and they might not be able to do all that. And Brad did spend some time talking about the financial realities and how different they are now than they have been in the past, how they like to keep their roster flexibility options open and pull different levers lever levers. I think he said I think he called them levers instead of levers, which whatever. Same thing. Tomato tomato, literally. The idea of trading so the players. It's the it's the 23 draft class. Jack Campbell, Sam Laporta, Brian Branch, Jamir Gibbs. By the way, he did talk, before I get into that, the trading part. The fifth year options have not been picked up yet, but he is he said that they have talked with, part both parties. That that would be Campbell and, at Gibbs. That is due to be done May 1. A lot of teams are just starting to pick them up now if they haven't picked them up in the last week, so I would expect some action on that very soon. But back to the concept of trading one of them instead of not paying them, That's an interesting idea, and they did do this with TJ Hawkinson back in the day. Obviously, that that was a different wildly different Lions organization and team. But right now, let's say you realize that you really can't afford to pay all four of those guys at their market values. And, also, by the way, like, there are other extensions that are coming up as well. The idea of trading, whether it's Laporta or Branch, the second round pick specifically, because I think that that's that's the more likely one. So the issue is that they're both injured or well, Branch is certainly injured. In Labordeaux's case, we don't really know. I kind of expect him to be back fine, but that might be wishful thinking on my part. But the idea of exploring trades and and then I know that there has been, somebody asked to ask me a question about it the this morning about the concept of or the rumors that are out there that that Samba Porta is being shopped and traded. I don't know anything about that. Like, to me, that feels like somebody trying to make something happen that isn't based in any reality, but I don't know. I'm not gonna certainly not gonna start a rumor like that. But to react to that idea, it's gotta be worth, in trade return, at least what you would get for him in a comp pick. Let's say Sam Laporta is going to hit free agency, and he signed somewhere else for a premium deal that lands you the number 100 pick as a number one zero two pick as a comp pick. End of the third round, beginning of the fourth round. You're not gonna trade him for anything less than that. And right now, because he missed time with a back injury, back injuries are notoriously wonky, Would another team be willing to give that up for San La Porter right now? The other part with that, and this is part b of it, What's your replacement plan? Are you going to use the trade compensation that you get in a trade for see, I'm a to draft his replacement. Well, there's Kenyan Sadiq, who I don't even think will be there at number 17 overall. By the way, I don't think he's worth number 17 overall, as it he's not as good as Laporta as a prospect. He's he's in the next tier kinda below that. I think he's I think he's gonna be a good NFL player. I don't think he I don't think his ceiling is as good as Sam Laporta's is, and we've seen Sam come pretty damn close to his ceiling already. And there's presumed presuming he's healthy in a offense that's led by Jerpetsing with Jared Goff at the quarterback. Like, you, yeah. I I want that premium tight end. Sam Laporta is very valuable to me. Having a a variety of good tight ends is very important to this offense, so it would have to make a lot of sense. And I don't think any team's gonna give up enough to do that. That's just my thought on the idea of trading him. Now Branch I'm very open to the idea of the lions trading Brian Branch if he were healthy because I will go back to last year when he, got his latest fine for his latest illegal hit, and he had some coverage woes. He had some missed tackles. He's a very good player. I like Brian Branch a lot. I really do. Again, I'll go back to that draft. He was my number 18 overall player, and they got him much, much later. And he's been he's been absolutely worth the number 18 pick. Have they taken him there?

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Speaker 1: Now that the injury's on there too, I wonder how much they value him compared to how much another team might value him. Yeah. Just I'm thinking out loud here. Let's say a defensive back and needy team has has a I I'll make up the the hypothetical thing here, and this is purely hypothetical. The Cincinnati Bengals want Brian Branch. Purely hypothetical. Again, I wanna stress that so it doesn't get split up and Ruth is saying that they're trading branch of the no. No. No. Stop with that nonsense. If you're an AI scraper doing that shit, stop. And stop going to those places, by the way, for those of you watching. It's all bullshit. Let it die. If you ignore it, it will go away. They're not making money off of it. They won't do it, hopefully. That might be wishful thinking on my part too. But let's say the Bengals want to trade for Brian Branch now. What would they give? Would it be worth it to move on from that? Do they have his replacement on the roster? They might. Harper played okay last year. Not he's not Brian Branch. They have the ability to get his replacement at 17 or in some combination of what the trade return might be. If it's a third round player, could be Bud Clark, could be oh, man. AJ Halsey. I'm not I'm not a big Halsey fan, but, like, I get I get it. That one, I would I would be more willing, if I were Brad Holmes, to listen to trade offers for Brian Branch than Sam Laporta. I don't know if Brad agrees with that. And the injury status kinda makes it a moot point. Imagine you're the imagine you're a Bengals fan, first off, on my condolences. You gotta pay for your own freaking Gatorade. Yeah. No. Oh, boy. I gotta stay focused here. Shutters and being a Bengals fan. Maybe that's the Cleveland kid in me coming out. I don't know. You try to explain to your fan base that you're trading a day two pick for a guy who's not gonna play for you until at least Thanksgiving, probably at the earliest and maybe not at all. And even when he does come back or even if he does come back a little bit earlier, he's not the same player that he's been. That that's that's the history with Achilles injuries. They're just not. It takes a full year. Like, you want the year after injury. Like, 2027, Brian Branch, back to being a pro ball, all pro type talent. 2026? I don't know. Imagine you're the fan of that team that trades for him. And you're like, well, you just traded away a day two pick for a guy who's not gonna help us at all now. And, oh, by the way, he's gonna be a free agent, and we have to sign into a big contract. Otherwise, there's no point in making the trade. So and that is the other part that that factors in the trades like that as I've spin wildly away from talking about footprint in this press conference. Like, the reason that you're trading for him is because you're going to also give him a big contract that he wouldn't necessarily get in Detroit. It it would be a bigger contract than what Detroit would give him. That's a tough sell, ladies and gentlemen. Back to Brad, what he talked about. I thought Tim Twentyman asked a quest a good question about the age and, you know, he didn't specifically name players by name, but this was pretty clearly in a key Mesador question. And he talked about, in general, about, you know, the older prospects being 24, 25. And Brad, said that they are conscious of it, and it is something that they do have to consider when they're looking at the long term building of the team. I would just add that, like, aside from the the the idea of the second contract, and I don't think that this angle gets brought up enough. And, again, this is this is me. This is not Brad. This is me talking. One of the reasons that Hakeem Mesador and and he's not the only one. Nadame Tucker from Western Western Michigan is another one. He he'll be 26 as a rookie. You know, Dave Scott from Miami is another one. He will be 25. I think he just turned 25 very recently, if not, like, before the draft. Like, they're one of the reasons that they have had their success in college is because they are, in fact, older and more physically mature and have played longer than the other guys. That gives them an inherent advantage. That advantage goes away when they get to the NFL. It's not just about the second contract. It's about why they achieved what they did in college because they're going against 18, 19, 20 year olds all the time who haven't had the there's the physical maturity or the game reps or the game maturity to them. That also has to get factored in when you're talking about older prospects. So it it goes beyond just the first thing that when when we talk about those older prospects like that, that's one of the things that comes into it. Emmanuel Emmanuel Pregnant's another one. He is an older prospect. And by the way, his tape markedly shot up in his last season. You go back to when he was at USC, that dude wasn't draftable. But he got to be 24 years old playing in a more more conducive system for what he does. All of a sudden, he looks like a second rounder. Gotta keep that in mind with guys like that. Again, back to Brad. He was asked about Larry Borom and DJ Wanam specifically and if they can start. That wasn't exactly how the the question was phrased, but that's what they asked. And he said, there is starter level ability in both of them, and it didn't feel like we would okay. My writing sucks. Sorry. It didn't feel like we have to draft a replacement for either of them. What that tells me is that they are, in fact, comfortable with Larry Borum starting at right tackle, moving to left tackle as Dan suggested at the at the owners meetings. And that DJ Wonnum could very well be your starter opposite Aidan Hutchinson as the other defensive end. Do I think that's what's gonna happen? No. I do think they're gonna draft somebody at each one, but the I and and Brad talked about this in a and this dovetails in with another answer where he talked about, like, the players might not necessarily be as ready to start. Even every first rounder isn't necessarily ready to start right away, and this gives them time to ease somebody in and not throw them to the wolves. Again, I'm I'm paraphrasing for Brad here, and I'm I'm going off of his intent in what he was talking about. That's certainly truer at offensive tackle than it is at edge. So for those who are interested in the more developmental type of offensive tackles who might be better in 2027 and beyond. There's look. The the obvious ones, Munro Freeling, Caden Proctor, Caleb Lomu, Maxi Henicker. Travis Burke is another one. Yeah. They this re to me, this reinforces that they're comfortable having Larry Borom be their week one starter at right tackle.

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Speaker 1: Fingers crossed that he would handle it. He did talk about how both had, upward trends in their performances and tapes that, you know, lead lead them to be comfortable with that. At edge, that that that's a tougher one because the the big time developmental edge in this class is Rival Reese will be long gone. By the way, I have something coming at Real GM tonight that, talks a little bit about Arval Reese as well as, my offensive tackle big board published there today. Please check that out. Footballrealgm.com. Thank you. The Caden Procter fans probably won't wanna read it, but he is OG too for me. And I could so just to deviate real quick here, I'm not in on Vega Venga Iowane at number 17. And I could be persuaded that Caden Proctor is a better guard in the NFL than Iowane will be or Awane will be. Yeah. Yeah. I don't see Alana is fantastic in a phone booth, and he does fit schematically with the lines, but he is not on that level for me in my eyes. There there's there are questions with him that are a little concerning. I don't know. And if Proctor moves inside, that honestly, that takes away a lot of the worries that I have about him. But also back to the last thing last couple things with Brad here. He was asked about Reuben Bain and the the very unfortunate news that has now broken widely, and, we learned we in draft media I learned about this I think it was Friday, Thursday or Friday. It came up in a group DM that I'm in. And I did post in our Patreon Slack on on the Detroit Lions podcast. I think it was Saturday morning that, like, there's gonna be some shit about to hit the fan with Ruben Bane. And it did. He was involved in a car accident that killed a young lady, who's from from Ohio, from Cleveland, the Cleveland area. Technically, Eastlake, which is where I used to live for a brief time. Back in 2024, he escaped charges. He's also since been involved in another driving incident. And, like, the details are still coming out on all of this. But Brad was asked if that changed their opinion on him, and, it didn't. And he said that he had known about it for a while. So tough to that's that's a tough one. There's a there's a lot of layers to that onion that we might go into at another time. The other thing, well, two of the things, actually. He talked about Tarion, the and he this was a question from from Dave Burkett, and it was, it brought the mood down immediately because, Brad got very serious all of a sudden when asked about Tarion if there's any agent of status. And Brad was like, we've put out statements, and, like, he got very almost withdrawn, and that was the end of that answer. Like, okay. I still think it's a nonissue, but we'll see. The lions pretty clearly think it's a nonissue as well based on the statements that they put out and what we've heard behind the scenes as well. They expect Terry and Arnold to be out there and fine and, honestly, even a little bit hungrier than he already has been, to just prove that that he is there's no issue. The other one, they are not having a local pro day this year. And this it it's funny how these things come up because I had not heard that yet. And somebody asked me over the weekend, like, you go to the Lions local pro day. I'm like, I don't know when it is. Like, I don't even know if they're having it. And that turns out they're not, so I wasn't left out of the loop. And he talked about how they realized last summer that they didn't really need to do one or didn't want to do one, that they're still doing local visits. There's a lot of those that they have done, but they didn't feel like they're value out of having a local pro day. We'll say that's where they found Trevor Nowaski. They have also found Nate Lynn that way. Now those guys were also eligible for local visits, and the local visits don't count against the 30 visits. So they basically felt like it was wasting their or not a not a wasting is the wrong word. Not a as productive of a use of their draft precious time in the next few days getting ready for the draft than actually doing the draft stuff. I don't know. I I like the idea of, the the local guys getting a chance to come in and show what they can do. By the way, that's one of those things where you can curry favor with an agent for a guy because their agents will all be there. If you're gonna be a local pro day guy who's looking for an undrafted rookie contract or a rookie mini camp invite, you better believe your agent's gonna be there. And this is where you can talk that agent and set up, hey. We're not gonna draft your guy, but we want we want to be on the phone with you as the seventh round is going on talking about signing him, to at least come into our rookie mini camp. And that that is where that happens. So from that sense, I do think there's a little bit of a loss there, but that's, that's that that's their choice. We've talked for half an hour now about Brad's press conference today, which is roughly double the amount of time that he actually talks. I think that's enough. We'll be back tomorrow, Tuesday, with my dream lions draft. Been writing it, this morning. Those of you who've checked it out, I wrote the one for lions wire last year. I put it up on my socials. You can go check that out. I had a lot of fun with it. I try to have fun with this. Can't all be serious all the time. This wig, life goes. Jeff Risen. Please be good to one another.