For the Detroit Lions, change is good and necessary

The draft is the lifeblood of  contenders

The Lions are now making another change. Head coach Dan Campbell continues to be a straight shooter and announced this past week they would be trading linebacker, Jamie Collins.

Now Collins was never a star during his time in Detroit. However, he was a good player when he was in New England. Now with his trade, we’ll see what kind of success he has.

Trading Collins isn’t big news from a standpoint of the Lions losing an impact player because he wasn’t. It also isn’t big news based on the return general manager Brad Holmes will get for him since it is expected Collins will probably only garner a late-round draft choice.

But there are two reasons why this is big news. The first is that Holmes and Campbell continue to be true to their word and are continuing to build towards the future. Both Brad and Dan have stated that their goal is to make decisions based on two years down the road.

Everyone already knew that Collins didn’t fit into the Lions’ plans down the road and the fact that he has been disappointing so far this season should make it exciting for Motor City fans to see the willingness of this regime to aggressively move on from a player that isn’t working out.

This is exactly what Holmes and Campbell did with Breshad Perriman.

Going into a rebuilding season, Holmes was economical in free agency and by all accounts did well in the draft. It is important to understand what that means.

The draft is the lifeblood of any contender. Teams that draft well are able to build rosters that can compete for championships. Teams that don’t typically play like the Detroit Lions.

Doing well in the draft is much more important than how a team does in free agency. As for those who point out that Holmes didn’t do well signing a player like Perriman only to cut him, they need to consider this; Brad and Dan knew this was the ground level they were building from. Therefore spending wildly in free agency was not an option since it would only hurt the salary cap down the road.

Making bargain basement signings on short one-year contracts allowed the Lions to fill out the roster more, but they were not meant to be long-term answers. That is what the draft is for. Draft well to build a contender, then add key pieces in free agency as needed.