For some, it’s the “dead period” of the NFL season. This allows some general managers, coaches and players the opportunity to enjoy this quiet time with their families. For others, it’s a chance to get caught up on scouting or start the process of how to attack which players they’re going to scout.
On Tuesday morning, Peter Schrager of the NFL Network had Lions general manager Brad Holmes on his podcast called The Season with Peter Schrager. In the interview, Brad Holmes talked about how he became a scout, Aaron Donald and even talked about the movie Training Day.
One question that Schrager asked of Holmes was what he liked so much about Lions first round pick Jahmyr Gibbs.
Holmes said, “I first fell in love with him, obviously, and I didn’t know much about him as he was at Georgia Tech the year before. I first saw him at the Alabama-Texas game or earlier in the year and I saw his body type and this guy looks intriguing. And then I kind of saw what he was doing in both phases. Yeah, I mean he can run it, but what he can do as a receiver and the explosiveness and everything about him and we just kept doing work on him.”
Moments before that question, Holmes gave some praise to Schrager for being one of the only people in the media to mention Gibbs as a player to go early in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft.
In addition to talking about Gibbs, there was questions about the Lions other first round pick, Jack Campbell. Holmes praised Campbell for the person and player he is, not just the position he plays. He said, “Jack Campbell is a hell of a football player. He’s going to be an anchor for our defense.”
You can listen to Holmes talk more in detail about the players he drafted in the 2023 NFL Draft to his path from college to an Enterprise rental car salesman. This episode of the podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. The video of the interview is attached below. Enjoy!