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Appreciative comments followed Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn out the door, but one of the St. Brown brothers thought coaching cost the Detroit Lions. However, the Lions general manager got real on the “humbling” exit at the hands of the Commanders.
The Lions fell victim to Jayden Daniels and the Commanders in a 45-31 decision in the Divisional Round of the NFC playoffs. Brad Holmes said the loss hurt, according to nytimes.com.
“Obviously fell short of the goals that we set out to accomplish this year and it stung,” Holmes said. “It’s humbling, but I won’t allow it to discredit all of the positives that we were able to accomplish as well this season.”
Holmes pointed to the accomplishments of the team.
“Franchise record of wins and another division title,” Holmes said. “And being undefeated on the road, being undefeated in the division in a — call it what it is — a historically tight division race this year. The whole organization had a hand in that. And I can’t thank the players enough for all of their sacrifice and strain and commitment. And their response through the adverse moments that arose.
“Our fans, they still, once again, they showed up and did their par. And they upheld their end of the bargain. I wish we could have done more for them. But hey look, it happened. It happened and you can’t sulk it back. You can’t mope a reversal of the unfortunate outcome. So there’s literally nothing else to do but pick yourself up and get back to work. There is nothing else to do, so that’s what we’re going to do. That’s what we will do, and the process has already started.”
Lions head coach Dan Campbell already started the process of a Super Bowl window when he said the team missed its chance after last year’s NFC title-game loss to the 49ers. And now look at the mess. Penei Sewell, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jared Goff, Alim McNeill, and Taylor Decker all have big-money contracts ahead.
Plus, the Lions lost both of their star coordinators with Ben Johnson going to the Bears and Aaron Glenn heading to the Jets.
“I think that we’ve done a good job of doing our best we can to avoid windows,” Holmes said. “And I understand that contracts come up when contracts come up and stuff happens. But we feel so good about our young core and young nucleus of players. And we feel really good about our quarterback and how he’s playing and him having an MVP-caliber season this year. So, I just think all of the pieces are in place that I don’t really feel walls closing in or a window. Again, we kind of make an effort to avoid those kinds of things.”
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