Look, I know it’s the thing that so many Detroit Lions fans spent their entire off-season talking about. A lot of the media did too, myself included. The Lions needed someone opposite Aidan Hutchinson, and while Al-Quadin Muhammad proved to be that guy to an extent, Lions fans and media, myself included, are still giving him grief for not signing one, drafting one, or trading for one at the deadline.

Today I had a massive change of stance on this because I sat down and looked at the available free agents, the prospects that were in Holmes’ range, and the guys who got moved at the deadline, and the takeaway is, man, the Lions dodged several bullets. Let’s look it over.

Free Agency

Ok, we’ll go in chronological order. Free agency was the spot that Lions fans were hoping Holmes would attack for an edge rusher. Here are the edge rushers who were available, their contracts, and what they did this year:

Player	Team signed with	Contract	2025 Output
Dayo Odeyingbo	Bears	3 years, $48 million	10 pressures and 1 sack
Harold Landry	Patriots	3 years, $43.5 million	50 pressures and 8.5 sacks
Joey Bosa	Bills	1 year, $12.6 million	51 pressures and 5 sacks
DeMarcus Lawrence	Seahawks	3 years, $32.5 million	52 pressures and 6 sacks
Malcom Koonce	Raiders	1 year, $11 million	35 pressures and 4.5 sacks
Pat Jones	Panthers	2 years, $15 million	10 pressures and 1 sack
Michael Hoecht	Bills	3 years, $21 million	8 pressures and 2 sacks
Chauncey Golston	Giants	3 years, $18 million	5 pressures and 1 sack
Al-Quadin Muhammad	Lions	1 year, $1.4 million	53 pressures and 11.5 sacks

Ok, so as you can see, none of these guys had a good year. Like, none of them. They all robbed the team they signed with. Some of them got hurt, and others were just bad. You can see at the bottom that Muhammad cost a fraction of what some of these guys cost and had better production. The Lions dodged several bullets in free agency. Several.

2025 NFL Draft

Ok, so we know the Lions tried to trade up multiple times for an edge rusher in this draft. Nobody would do a deal with them. So they missed on some guys who were picked before they were up in the first round. They tried to move up in the second and couldn’t get a deal done. So they missed out on a lot of edges, but there were still guys like Ashton Gillotte, Landon Jackson, Princely Umanmielen, Jordan Burch, and Josaiah Stewart available in the third. Instead, the Lions traded up for Isaac TeSlaa. Let’s see how well the guys they missed did.

Players	2025 output
Ashton Gillotte	24 pressures and 1.5 sacks
Landon Jackson	0 pressures and 0 sacks
Princely Umanmielen	10 pressures and 1.5 sacks
Jordan Burch	16 pressures and 1 sack
Josaiah Stewart	22 pressures and 3 sacks

Man, not much was missed there at all. Maybe one of these guys will develop into something, but they weren’t going to make much of a difference in Detroit in 2025.

NFL Trade Deadline

The Lions didn’t get anything done at the deadline, but all of the teams that did either missed the playoffs or are eliminated now. There was one edge rusher move made, and that was the Eagles trading a third-round pick to the Dolphins for Jaelan Phillips. He wound up getting 42 pressures and two sacks for them in nine games. Hey, I was big on the idea of trading for Phillips. But the Eagles gave up way too much and got not a lot in return. So the Lions were smart to stay out of that one.

He wasn’t available at the deadline, but not trading for Trey Hendrickson was a big bullet dodged, too. He played just seven games this season.

I know that this is just narrative killing for a lot of people, but I do want to be up front when I say that the Lions do need some more help along the defensive line this offseason. They were just right to not look for it last off-season. Because it was all pretty bad.

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