5 questions we want answered in Lions GM Brad Holmes’ press conference

Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes is currently scheduled to have his end-of-season press conference on Thursday. Many Lions fans are eagerly anticipating this press conference after a frustrating end to the 2025 season. There is a palpable eagerness to see what Holmes will say about with some of the moves he did (and didn’t make) the past year for a season that failed to meet expectations in nearly every single way.

Here are the five things I’m hoping to learn from Holmes press conference.

So many offensive line questions

• When did you know about Frank Ragnow’s potential retirement?
• Was Tate Ratledge part of his replacement plan?
• Do you view center as still a primary need?
• Where is Giovanni Manu in his development?
• How are you planning for the inevitable retirements for Taylor Decker/Graham Glasgow in the near future?
• Do you think there needs to be more competition at guard to push Christian Mahogany/Miles Frazier?

I imagine offensive line will be a huge topic on Thursday, as that position group took the biggest step back in 2025. It will be interesting to see if Holmes believes he could’ve approached anything differently to avoid regression at one of the most important position groups.

But more importantly, it will be nice to have some insight into how Holmes will attempt to fix the position in the future. Is Manu part of the plan? What about Glasgow and Decker? Does he feel like Ratledge could be the future center or does he like him better at guard? There needs to be a clear plan here, and while I don’t expect Holmes to give away everything, some sort of vision would help ease some minds in Detroit.

Should he have done more at defensive end?

After Day 2 of the 2025 NFL Draft, Holmes was peppered with questions about the team failing to add an edge defender. Safe to say, he got pretty defensive about it.

“All I hear is, ‘Edge rusher, draft an edge rusher.’ Well, are you assuming that the guy is really good? Well, that’s a whole different story,” Holmes said at the time.

Later in training camp, coach Dan Campbell told 97.1 The Ticket “we’re good” at defensive end—in a quote about adding Za’Darius Smith that is commonly being misattributed to Holmes.

Flash forward to the end of the season and pass rush was certainly an issue in 2025. The Lions finished with the third-slowest time to pressure in the NFL (2.86). Will Holmes downplay that issue and, instead, point to their 49 sacks (fourth-most in the NFL) and Al-Quadin Muhammad’s season? Or will he admit the Lions should have taken the position more seriously?

Of course, more important than him taking accountability is his plan forward. As of right now, the following edge defenders are headed toward free agency:

• Marcus Davenport
• Al-Quadin Muhammad
• Josh Paschal
• Tyrus Wheat

Has his outlook changed on long-term project draft picks? ----------------------------------------------------------...