The Detroit Lions believe they have the right mix of individuals competing for roster spots and playing time at the wide receiver position.
After free agency and the draft, many supporters and pundits are wondering if the front office did enough to replace veteran Josh Reynolds, who signed a free agent contract with the Denver Broncos.
Appearing on 97.1 The Ticket, general manager Brad Holmes explained reasons why he was comfortable with the mix at wide receiver.
“We feel good about the group that we have. I totally understand that you may feel, you can feel a little more comfort when you’ve seen a guy that’s actually done it. But some guys that have actually done it, you’ve seen them do it in the past, but those guys are older. And so just because you’ve seen a guy do it in the past, he may not look the same, or do it the same way when you’re forecasting what it’s gonna look like in the future,” said Holmes. “So with that said, we feel really good about the upside and the development of the guys that we currently have. That’s not saying that we won’t add, that’s a position that, especially when you get into camp, those guys put a lot of yardage on the field.
“At some point, you need to add a guy here or there when some attrition comes. We feel really good about the guys we have and obviously we have an elite one that we just did a deal with,” Holmes explained further. “We have Jameson Williams who is coming on very, very strong. We have high hopes for him and we like where he’s at at this point. We know that he’s just gonna continue to get better.”
Among the reasons the team is comfortable with the current offensive roster is having Donovan Peoples-Jones return and the development of second-year wideout, who is expected to compete for more playing time and targets.
“(Donovan) Peoples-Jones, we traded for. He was a big-time core player for the Cleveland Browns before we traded for him,” Holmes said. “But we traded for him and the guy comes in late and he doesn’t really know the offense and so then you haven’t seen Peoples-Jones and we all kind of get into the recency bias of, ‘Oh, what’s Peoples-Jones gonna do?’ No, Peoples-Jones can play. So he does provide an element of being able to play on the outside and being a contested catch guy and being able to do multiple things.”
Green, a former seventh-round pick, has the size and speed that should translate well in Ben Johnson’s offense.
“We’re really excited about Antoine Green, about how he’s came along. He’s another guy that has size, he has speed and he’s a guy that kept getting better and better and better,” Holmes explained. “I know he didn’t get a ton of targets in games for the world to see. But us being internally with him every single day throughout the season, we really like where he’s going. We really like Kalif Raymond, obviously, who we extended last year, so we really like our group right now.”
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