‘Tis the season for NFL award selections.
But with two weeks’ of games still remaining, I’ll spare you the explainers on my current pencil-only choices of Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson as MVP, Houston’s DeMeco Ryans as top coach, Cleveland’s Myles Garrett as top defensive player, San Francisco’s Christian McCaffrey as top offensive player, Houston’s C.J. Stroud as top rookie on offense and Philadelphia’s Jalen Carter as top rookie on defense.
The NFL offers no award for Most Valuable Entertainer.
Being a can-do guy, I’ll remedy that by naming Detroit Lions talent man Brad Holmes the first winner of the MVE, while lauding Holmes, 44, also for holding a degree in journalism.
My flawless logic: the NFL exists for entertainment, and Holmes has played a pivotal role in making the long-tedious Detroit Lions fun to watch.
The Lions used to be known for hosting a game every Thanksgiving despite often playing like turkeys.
Now they’re known for Holmes and colleagues having turned them into division titlists for the first time in 30 years. At worst, they’ll enter the playoffs seeded third.
The Lions (11-4) score 27.5 points per game (fifth of 32 teams) behind efficient quarterback Jared Goff, a bunch of blockers who entertain football geeks like me and playmakers headed by gritty receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Holmes gets a large chunk of the credit because he’s hit home runs at a Cecil Fielder-level clip since taking over as executive vice president and general manager in January 2021.
Quarterback? He traded for a beaten-down Goff and draft picks, while at the same time doing QB Matthew Stafford a deserved favor by dealing him to the Rams, Holmes’ former club, after Stafford asked to be dealt.
Coach? He hired Dan Campbell.
Offensive tackle? He drafted Penei Sewell, already a top-3 anchor on the right side, four months after becoming GM.
Edge rusher? He selected Michigan’s own Aidan Hutchinson second overall in 2022.
USC alum St. Brown went in the fourth round of Holmes’ first draft. The same influx brought a pair of useful durable defensive linemen in Alim McNeill (North Carolina State) and Derrick Barnes (Purdue).
Following up the selection of Hutchinson, who has 16 sacks and 16 tackles for loss and won’t turn 24 until August, Holmes made a nervy, complicated trade with the rival Vikings that put Alabama speedster Jameson Williams in a Lions uniform.
That’s still a TBD move.
But it’s promising that Williams has made a full comeback from the ACL tear he suffered in his final collegiate season. The 22-year-old had a season-high five touches last week in the NFC North-clinching win over the Vikings.
As for this year’s draft class, it sealed the ‘23 MVE award.
Holmes’ first four selections — running back Jahmyr Gibbs, linebacker Jack Campbell, tight end Sam LaPorta and nickel cornerback Brian Branch — stand already as above-average NFL starters.
With his fifth pick, Holmes may have found a successor to Goff in Hendon Hooker, who grew up in Greensboro N.C. not far from Holmes’ childhood and college alma mater, North Carolina AT&T.
SEC coaches named Hooker the conference’s 2022 Offensive Player of the Year after he nearly led Tennessee to the national playoffs. The 25-year-old rookie and former Virginia Tech starter sat out his final collegiate season after having reconstructive knee surgery. He throws a pretty ball, runs well enough to command respect and shows prototypical size at 6-foot-3 ½ and 220 pounds.
So it appear Lions principal owner Sheila Ford Hamp and several folks she enlisted in an ultra-thorough job search hit their own home run by hiring Holmes, the Rams’ director of college scouting.
Holmes was one of 12 candidates interviewed for the job, which came open within two years of GM Bob Quinn’s crucially failed decision to draft cornerback Jeff Okudah third overall instead of quarterbacks Justin Herbert or Tua Tagovailoa.
Among the others interviewed were former NFL GMs in Thomas Dimitroff, Rick Smith, Scott Pioli and Jeff Ireland.
Holmes followed his father, Marvin, a former guard for the Steelers, into football. He played defensive tackle in college, serving also as a team captain. He entered the NFL as a public relations intern with the St. Louis Rams in 2003 before moving into scouting and rising into executive roles.
He assisted in assembling a nucleus of Rams players that would combine with coach Sean McVay, Stafford and Von Miller in leading the franchise to its first Super Bowl victory while based in Los Angeles.
“The standard is, first of all, we get ionate players,” Holmes told the Rams’ website in 2019. “We talk about being good teammates, being a connected team. We talk about being relentless. We want smart players, instinctive players, explosive players.”
Rams GM Les Snead told ESPN that Holmes’ “dynamic intelligence” would serve him well. The team’s chief operating officer, Kevin Demoff, said Holmes was able to be a leader away from the machinations of football.
Endorsing him to the Detroit Free Press soon after Holmes took over the Lions, former NFL running back Wilbert Montgomery likened him to former Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome, who built Baltimore into a two-time Super Bowl champions and trained key scouts who are still with the AFC-leading Ravens.
“Ozzie and I go all the way back to high school and I had the pleasure of working with Ozzie Newsome in Baltimore,” said Montgomery, a Lions assistant who helped Holmes catch on as an Rams intern. “I would say right now (Holmes) is very, very much a young Ozzie Newsome at this point in his career.”
If you enjoy football, Brad Holmes belongs on your thank-you list for 2023.
