Brad Holmes explains Detroit Lions' approach to free agency

The Detroit Lions have signed 14 players in free agency. All but one of them — center Cade Mays, who signed a three-year deal — will be free agents again next season. Lions general manager Brad Holmes spoke about the Lions' free-agent approach during a recent episode of the Lions Collective podcast , citing "financial constraints" stemming from megadeals given to drafted players and future deals to be paid to members of the vaunted 2023 draft class.

According to Holmes, the Lions could certainly be more active in free agency — but those decisions will probably cost them players they've drafted and developed. Running back Jahmyr Gibbs, linebacker Jack Campbell, safety Brian Branch and tight end Sam LaPorta are all eligible for extensions this offseason. "When we're looking at the constraints that we have financially entering in, it's like, 'OK, we're not going to be able to do a lot of multi-year deals,' because what we're trying to do with these extensions that we have upcoming, the implications that it would have on our cap would be — I don't want to call it crippling — but it would have been hard to overcome," Holmes said.

"We were kind of limited in how many multi-year deals that we actually could get. " Added Holmes, "We feel really, really good about what we were able to accomplish. " Here are a few other takeaways from the Lions Collective podcast: ▶ The Lions had three big holes entering the offseason: center (filled by Mays), tackle (at least partially filled by Larry Borom) and edge rusher (filled by veteran DJ Wonnum).

Wonnum's one-year, $2. 3 million deal (according to Over The Cap, a popular salary cap website) was far and away the cheapest of the three and less than half the financial commitment that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers made to Al-Quadin Muhammad, who had 11 sacks for the Lions last season. Holmes said that the signing of Mays precluded Detroit from making a bigger move at edge rusher, but noted that he's "always been a big fan of" Wonnum.