Brad Holmes makes startling admission about process to acquire Za'Darius Smith

The process to acquire Za'Darius Smith at the trade deadline tested Brad Holmes as a general manager like he'd never been tested before.

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When Aidan Hutchinson suffered a broken left fibula and tibia in Week 6, the worst-kept secret in the NFL in the ensuing weeks before the trade deadline was the Detroit Lions needing an edge rusher. With Super Bowl aspirations that were very real, it was a practical necessity to get a capable veteran edge rusher.

Za'Darius Smith, with the Cleveland Browns to start the season, easily surfaced as someone who looked like a good fit. When the possibility of being traded to Detroit was brought up to him by a reporter in Cleveland, he was clearly open to it.

On trade deadline day, Nov. 5, the deal to bring Smith to the Lions was finalized. They also got a 2026 seventh-round pick in the trade, while sending a fifth-round pick in 2025 and a sixth-round pick in 2026 to Cleveland.

Brad Holmes admits how he was tested by process to acquire Za'Darius Smith

Holmes had his season ending press conference on Thursday. He was asked how he grew as a general manager with all the roster attrition the Lions had.

"This was the first year, especially the attrition at one spot, obviously linebacker we got really hit, we got hit in training camp at linebacker, then it trickled into the season. But pass rusher, and this was the first time we’ve had to trade for a pass rusher this year, and I will say that was the most difficult player acquisition journey that I’ve ever dealt with," Holmes said.

When teams knew Holmes was in the market for an edge rusher, his leverage surely went way down. From a sheer availability standpoint, he acknowledged how he was up against it there too.

"Look, you can talk about – you can look at all these names of all these starting defensive ends in the NFL, but when you start doing the work and you start making the calls, that thing shrinks down", Holmes said. "From an availability standpoint, that thing shrinks down like this (to very few available). And a lot of the guys, look, we have an early – kind of have an early trade deadline, so you start calling these other teams and these other GMs and they might have four rushers," Holmes said. "And so, forget the starters, those guys aren’t even available."

"We’re talking about thirds and fourths", Holmes continued, "and I can’t really disagree with them, where they say, ‘Look, we’ve got two-plus months of football left and I trade you one and then we get another one hurt and then we’ve only got two.’ And I was like, ‘I didn’t really expect you to be rational and think about it that way.’ But it’s true."

Smith was in a category almost all his own then.

"So when we got Za'Darius", Holmes said, "he was one of a small handful of guys that were actually available to actually get that we felt was going to compete and contribute at a starter level."

Like Dan Campbell, Holmes rarely holds back his words. Him calling the trade for Smith the "most difficult player acquisition journey I've ever dealt with" is still striking though, and it reveals why it didn't get all the way done until the morning of trade deadline day.

Holmes talked about the in-season trade for Smith with Dannie Rogers of Lions.com. Check out the video of that end of season interview below.

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