The Lions are no longer the turkeys of the NFL

Brad Holmes had been general manager of the Detroit Lions for only a few weeks when he made the decision that determined whether he would succeed in his new job or set a struggling franchise back even further.

Holmes’ counterintuitive idea to turn the team around began with trading the team’s most valuable player. But the 2021 deal that gave up quarterback Matthew Stafford didn’t send the Lions into the type of painstaking rebuild that can take years, if it ever works out. This actually allowed them to short-circuit that process and become a Super Bowl contender faster than anyone imagined.