When Brad Holmes was hired to be the next general manager of the Detroit Lions, he had a plethora of important decisions to make, including deciding on whether or not Kenny Golladay would be part of the team’s future.
Ultimately Holmes decided not to give Golladay a contract extension and not to use the franchise tag on him but he has really never gotten into the details as to why.
During the first installment of “The Athletic Football Show’s” offseason interview series, Holmes spoke with podcast host Robert Mays about giving DE Romeo Okwara a big multi-year deal. While answering the question about re-signing Okwara, Holmes hinted that doing so was why he could not afford to keep Golladay around.
From The Athletic:
It wasn’t difficult to actually make the decision that we wanted to re-sign Romeo, it was just about how we’re going to make it work. Because, obviously, he plays a premium position — a pass rush is always premium. And at what his age was, the productive year that he was coming off of, his size, his length, that doesn’t come cheap. And then, you always talk about the intangibles — he plays hard, he plays the game the right ways, tough and smart, all of that. When personnel and coaching staff collaborated, he always kind of rose to the top in terms of a premium priority.
You have to make some difficult decisions. Can you afford to franchise a (Kenny) Golladay and re-sign (Okwara)? I mean, those are the decisions you have to (make). We’re extremely excited and happy that Romeo was able to get re-signed. We’ve got big plans for him going forward.
As I said from Day 1. It was either going to be Romeo or Kenny and Romeo and it was a very easy decision.
Brad Holmes got this one right.
