Notes: Brad Holmes says story of the Lions is ‘patience and resilience’

If you could describe the Detroit Lions’ plan in a few words, what would it be?

For Brad Holmes, there are two that properly encapsulate it.

“I think you could sum it up in patience and resilience,” he said. “I think when Dan I first got here, we had a plan in place. We have great ownership that believes in our plan and was patient enough with us to draft and develop — the roster’s kind of down to the studs and have to kind of build it back over. We had to go in some deep waters and we had to go through some dark times.”

The Lions general manager sat down with Michael Smith of NFL on NBC at the NFL Combine to talk about the journey the boys in Honolulu blue are on.

In the interview, Holmes goes on to say that’s what Campbell’s stressed since day one —being about grit and resilience. He noted that with having such a young team, which included having the youngest set of starters in the league at one point, you have to have patience.

Smith asked what Holmes hopes others around the league see in the Lions.

“Hopefully they see us at the gritty football team, you know? When you talk about grit, we talk about will, we talk about perseverance, and hopefully they look at us as gritty and hopefully they see us as doing it the right way too,” he said.

Holmes said often times the right way is the hard way, and they’re willing to take that road. They saw the fruits of their labor to the tune of a playoff push in the latter half of this past season.

The pair go on to talk about what type of players Holmes looks for and how he go to where he is today. Find the rest of the interview below:

And onto the rest of your notes.

• Who would be the perfect free agency fit for the Lions? NFL.com’s Kevin Patra takes a stab at it.

• The wonderful Lions social team has look at what some Lions looked like during their combine versus now:

• In this CBS Sports mock, the Lions do some wheeling and dealing but still bolster the defense with their ninth overall pick.

• Sounds very on brand.

• There’s no news here, it just looks like Aidan Hutchinson is having a fun offseason.

• Also no news here, but the people of Twitter (like me) demanded this prototype coffee mug became a reality and it looks like Jamaal Williams is coming through.