Detroit Lions GM Brad Holmes is now considered one of the main architects behind the team's recent success. His ability to find value deep in the draft, while being aggressive in pursuing who he and HC Dan Campbell consider to be true assets for the team, has paid off with the Lions' first trip to the NFC Championship Game in well over 30 years, along with back-to-back division titles.
Of course, he got his start elsewhere, spending nearly two decades working his way up the ranks within the Los Angeles Rams' organization as a scout, then Director of College Scouting. But had he made one choice differently, the stability and growth he experienced working within a single team for his entire career may never have happened. In a recent interview with Field Talk Podcast he related how this decision came to be.
In 2003, Holmes was a PR intern for the NBA's Atlanta Hawks. He'd already tried - and failed - to break into NFL scouting, sending applications to all 32 teams in the league over the previous year. During his time with the Hawks, he even tried to get time with one of their high-ranking scouts, but was denied.
Finally, around the time of the NBA All-Star Game held in Atlanta that year, Holmes got a chance to interview with Duane Lewis, the Rams' then-PR Director. He ended up taking a PR internship with the Rams, succeeded in shifting over to the scouting department a year later, and the rest is history.
But before taking that second internship, Holmes had already gotten an offer from the Lions, also as an intern. He had actually accepted the Detroit job before the Rams made their offer. It was only as he was checking out biographies of staff on both teams that he realized that the Rams had a history of hiring their interns onto their staff...and the Lions, notably, did not.
This was the era when Matt Millen was in charge of the Lions. Hired on in 2001 to be the team's CEO and to take on General Manager duties, he built a roster that compiled an abysmal stretch of 31-81 during his tenure.
Thus, at best, Holmes would have completed a year as a media/ PR intern, then been released to continue his career elsewhere. Almost certainly, even if he'd managed to stay in the league, another opportunity with the Rams would have had a slim chance of occurring.
Had he actually made the switch to working as a scout for the Lions, it's a guarantee that he would not have learned the same lessons as those given by various Rams execs, including Les Snead, their current GM.
To be fair, it's tough to say that Holmes' career would have suffered. It's entirely possible he may have gone on to a different team and found success. For sure, his talent and the drive were unquestionably at the forefront, exemplified in how he parlayed his PR internship into a scouting job to begin with. Another team may have seen those same attributes and skills, giving him opportunities to excel elsewhere.
Holmes even mentioned that, after a recommendation from Rams' leadership, he'd been granted a video interview during the NFL Combine a few years previous, as part of a program to develop future head coaches and general managers. He'd go on to view this interview as a failure, having prepared for a more business-focused slate of questions than the barrage of pure football-oriented questions he actually fielded.
Thankfully, years later, a more seasoned and prepared Holmes was given another crack at the same interview program, and the Lions' COO, Mike Disner, came across the video during the team's search for a GM.
The chain of "what if" is always a tenuous one, but in this case, it's safe to say that the Lions won out in the long run by losing Holmes to the Rams over two decades ago.
