The Detroit Lions aggressively went about internal business since the dust settled on free agency, getting wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, offensive tackle Penei Sewell and quarterback Jared Goff signed to big contracts.
Joining "The Rich Eisen Show" on Monday, general manager Brad Holmes discussed his approach to getting those contract extensions done this offseason.
"Obviously, there's a market for everyone and we try to make sure that our players are paid appropriately within where we are forecasting what that market is going to be. The other component about the win part is not only the win and when the deal is going to happen with how we forecasted the market, but we got to look at it for the future as well. I think we do an excellent job of we can pay this player this (amount) at this time and it's advantageous for us, but at the same time, is this going to limit us for what we want to do next year and the year after and another one of our own players that are going to be due for an extension and how much cash you're going to have available for free agency for the upcoming year. There's a lot of moving parts, but all of that comes into play."
It's a delicate balance indeed, but the Lions have an organizational philosophy to reward their own that Holmes has professed and backed up.
Brad Holmes believes rewarding deserving Lions players is important
At the end of the day, Holmes is not concerned with anything beyond rewarding players he sees as deserving. He used St. Brown's case to illustrate that.
"The bottom line is, from our standpoint, we just want to do what's right by the player and we want to make sure like, (Amon-Ra) St. Brown has earned this and we can't control what happens after that, but we wanted to make sure that we did what we're supposed to do and pay him appropriately. You try to do as best you can, but you know you just can't control the future. A lot of times, those other things that are looming, they're waiting for the first person to strike, but we shouldn't really punish the player that we're trying to reward because of what we can't control. We just felt like he's an elite player. He's truly earned it. He represents and embodies everything that we're about.... so just really happy for him."
St. Brown, Sewell and Goff are symbols and tentpoles of the culture in Detroit. They were all going to be paid by the Lions, it was just a matter of time. For Holmes, there was no sense waiting to get all three deals done.