How injuries and bad luck nuked Detroit Lions' chance at a Super Bowl
Brad Holmes used a very nice word to describe what happened to the Detroit Lions roster he and his staff spent all year carefully and painstakingly constructing: Attrition.
That’s what the team’s general manager cited Thursday morning at his end-of-season news conference, shortly before it was announced that the Pro Football Writers of America had named him NFL Executive of the Year for a second straight season.
“Look, 15 wins, that’s hard to do in a year where you don’t have all of the attrition that we had to deal with to get 15,” he said. “But on top of all of the attrition that we had to deal with ... I mean that’s about as difficult as it gets.”
Attrition isn’t a bad word. It’s an urbane word. A polished word.
But maybe it’s too polite. I would have chosen another word, like devastation or decimation.
Or maybe, if I were Holmes, I just would have looked up toward the heavens and asked, “Why do you hate this team?”
And the answer from the great beyond would have come in the form of a hearty, ghostly chuckle.
I have no doubt, somewhere up there on that gridiron in the sky, Bobby Layne was having a good laugh all season as injury upon injury mounted for the Lions on defense. I'm guessing the Blond Bomber beat St. Peter in an epic game of euchre and called in a favor to smite a different Lions defender each week.
Alim McNeill. Carlton Davis III. Derrick Barnes. Marcus Davenport. Ennis Rakestraw. John Cominsky. Malcolm Rodriguez. Mehki Wingo. Khalil Dorsey. Kyle Peko.
Aidan Hutchinson.
Gone. All of them. For the season.
The Lions’ injured reserve list had more bodies on it than the cast of “The Walking Dead." Playing defense this season for the Lions was more hazardous than playing drums for Spinal Tap.
I’m not sure what went into PFWA voters’ decision to crown Holmes, beyond the Lions’ 15-2 record. But I hope the voters considered what happened Oct. 13 in Dallas, when Hutchinson was lost for the season with a gruesome leg injury.
At the stadium that day, I remember turning to a colleague and saying, “Well, I guess the season’s over.”
But Holmes didn’t let that happen. He traded a 2025 fifth-rounder, plus a late-round pick swap, to Cleveland for pass rusher Za’Darius Smith. He signed players to the practice squad. He promoted players from the practice squad.
With the help of coach Dan Campbell and his assistants, the Lions made it work. Even as the outmanned defense started showing cracks, the Lions figured out a way to mask their defensive deficiencies by leaning on the offense.
I couldn’t help but wonder what Holmes thought that day in Dallas when Hutchinson went down, and even after that, as player after player went down.
Did it feel like someone knocked over his perfectly constructed Jenga tower?
“I never looked at it in that analogy,” he said with a smile. “That’s a pretty good one.”
What Holmes felt, more than frustration, was sympathy for the players whose seasons ended prematurely. But yes, he certainly felt a strange run of bad luck.
“When you look at some of these injuries of how they happened, there were some of them just bizarre,” he said. “So I just hate it for the players, because they put way too much into it to get the rash of bad luck.”
Hutchinson’s injury came when his leg was caught under McNeill. The luck extended to the the playoff loss to Washington: Cornerback Amik Roberston, coming off the game of his life against Minnesota, lasted just two snaps before his left elbow was broken in a collision with teammate Jack Campbell.
This is why Holmes continued to defend his philosophy of passing on big-name free agents in order to build depth. He knows injuries are a certainty.
“Well, we’re trying to accrue depth because this kind of stuff happens,” he said. “So we’ve kind of stuck true to that, but because I’ve always thought about that, when the injuries happened, I guess I’m mentally prepared for them a lot better.”
It’s such a waste. If the Lions had better health luck this season, they no doubt had the roster and the coaches to get to the Super Bowl this season — and probably win it.
Next season will present a different challenge, as the Lions transition into the realm of elite teams contending with losing their best coaches. Holmes promised that won’t change the team’s philosophy about adding players who fit the Lions’ culture, rather than players who fit a scheme or a position.
I’m confident Holmes will do that successfully again. Right after he picks up all the Jenga pieces from this season’s roster attri ... devastation.
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