The Detroit Lions are expected to hire the director of the Los Angeles Rams at Brad Holmes’ Recognition College as the team’s new general manager, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Holmes becomes the second black general manager in the team’s history, after Martin Mayhew, who was the team’s general manager from 2009 to ’15.
The Rams will become the first team to receive two compensatory choices from the third round as part of the new NFL hiring initiatives.
Holmes initially interviewed Detroit virtually on January 6 and then in person on Wednesday. The North Carolina A&T graduate – he majored in journalism and mass communication – spent his entire professional career with the Rams.
He started as a public relations intern in 2003 before moving on to the Scouting side and working his way up as a College Scout Director. Now he will replace Bob Quinn, who was fired by the Lions in November after almost five years in office.
Among the players chosen during his tenure as director of college scouts for the Rams were Aaron Donald twice NFL Defense of the Year Player, wide receiver Cooper Kupp, safety John Johnson III, linebacker Samson Ebukam, tight ends Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett, Todd Gurley’s running back and quarterback Jared Goff.
“The standard is, first of all, to have passionate players,” Holmes told the team’s website in 2019. “We talk about being good teammates, being a connected team. We talk about being relentless. We want smart, instinctive, explosive players. .
“These are the types of pillars that we look for in football players for the Rams. You are smart. You are instinctive. You are explosive. Those are the main components, critical factors that we look for.”
We just received a great emotional connection with Brad Holmes that, of course, ended with Les and Brad analyzing the draft … which led me to ask Les when he heard that Brad had “that” …@Lionsfans – get up … he was made for it! (oh and comment at the end🤣) pic.twitter.com/AquGmgQwjJ
– KHS (@KaraHenderson) January 14, 2021
41-year-old Holmes could change his view now that he is in the chair of general manager, having had experience with five coaches and four general managers during his time with the Rams, but Holmes achieved many of the things that Detroit researched in the process.
“We think that in some cases they are very peculiar to our situation,” said Lions team president Rod Wood recently. “I will not share all of them with you, but I would say that they focus on leadership, culture, teamwork, awareness of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and what we are really looking for is a culture that is open, inclusive, where everyone is coming together as a team and, in a word, communication is key and everyone is doing the right thing for Detroit Lions.
“So the people we’re looking for and the people we’re going to interview, I think, exhibit these characteristics.”
Rams general manager Les Snead told ESPN Lindsey Thiry that Holmes has “dynamic intelligence” and that he respects his ability to evaluate football players. The team’s chief operating officer, Kevin Demoff, told Thiry that he too was capable of being a leader away from the machinations of football.
This is something Wood insisted on when describing what the team was looking for – someone to lead and unify the organization at all levels.
Holmes is the nephew of Luther Bradley, Detroit’s first-round pick in 1978, and the son of former Pittsburgh striker Mel Holmes.
“He has become a valuable voice in our organization as part of our leadership team on issues of social justice and diversity, helping us to lead a diverse group of people,” Demoff told Thiry. “Brad is one of the most valuable voices we have in our building.”
Lions were at the forefront of diversity issues in the NFL last year. They were the first team to protest Jacob Blake’s shot in August, canceling training the day before the Milwaukee Bucks refused to play a playoff game in protest of Blake’s shot.
Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp had a classmate from Yale, Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., who spoke to his team virtually in August. Gates Jr. is the director of the Hutchins Center for African and Afro American Research at Harvard and the host of the PBS program “Finding Your Roots”.
Lions interviewed at least 12 people for the vacant position, including its three internal candidates and former general managers Rick Smith (Houston), Thomas Dimitroff (Atlanta) and Jeff Ireland (Miami).