It was always unlikely, but Lions general manager Brad Holmes has all but ended any talk about adding a second star edge rusher.
Myles Garrett started Super Bowl week by making his trade request public, which stirred up visions of the Detroit Lions (among other contending teams) trading for him. So it was not a surprise when Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry had to answer a bevy of Garrett-related questions when he spoke to reporters at the NFL Combine on Tuesday.
It was also no surprise that Berry stuck to his previous stance about not trading the 2023 Defensive Player of the Year.
"Our stance really has not changed,” Berry said. "We can’t imagine a situation where not having Myles as a part of this organization is best for the Browns.”
During his own time with reporters in Indianapolis on Tuesday, Lions general manager Brad Holmes received a lot of questions about the Lions adding another edge rusher to pair with Aidan Hutchinson.
Brad Holmes hits expected note on adding another star edge rusher
At his season-ending press conference, Holmes pointedly acknowledged how hard it was to make the trade to acquire Za'Darius Smith at the deadline. The bottom line was that other teams don't want to give up good pass rushers, as easily expected given the premium on the position.
On Tuesday, Holmes was asked if the trade deadline proved how unwilling teams are to give up good edge rushers. His answer was obvious.
“There are not a lot of those guys available,” Holmes said. “You can always say, so we lost a star edge rusher due to injury, right? Well, just because you lose a star pass rusher, there’s not but so many in the league anyway. Just because we lost a star pass rusher due to injury, that doesn’t mean that other teams are going to say, ‘Hey, we have a star pass rusher. I know that you lost one, but we have one. Would you like to have this one?’ No, that’s a star pass rusher for that team and they’re trying to win games.”
"Those guys are hard to acquire, and it’s hard to keep them, financially", Holmes added. "Again, we have one that’s due for an extension and we’ve already kind of gotten to the planning stages about him already. When you talk about adding another one, it’s, can you financially add another one? Because you want to add the other one on top of everything else that you have and that makes it tough.”
Holmes was then asked more directly if he could afford to add another star edge rusher, and his answer was to the point.
"Probably not.”
So there goes the idea of trading for Garrett. Or Maxx Crosby. Or Trey Hendrickson. As expected in the first two cases, at least. But a good veteran edge rusher addition doesn't have to come via a trade, or especially break the bank.
