'We're not gonna reach on a player, just to fill a position,' Brad Holmes says chasing needs can lead to putting the Lions in a dangerous cycle you don't want to be in

Detroit Lions fans want something so bad that they can taste it. We all know what that something is; it's an edge rusher. Specifically, an edge rusher opposite Aidan Hutchinson, who can be a premier player at the position. They also want that player to be picked first and nothing else makes sense to them. 

The problem is that the Lions just don't feel the same way. Make no mistake, they probably want an edge rusher, and they might take one in the first round. But they are not going to pick a player just to fill a position of need. More specifically...

 "We're not gonna reach on players just to fill a position." 

That's what Lions GM Brad Holmes said to the media on Thursday morning in his pre-draft presser and reiterated something that it feels like a good portion of the Lions fan base just refuses to hear. This team is not a needs-based drafting team. They will not chase the needs. The big reason is that Holmes believes that it could put you into a bad place. 

"You're just kind of getting into a cycle that I think is a little bit dangerous to get into. So that's why I've been more of, you know, just get the best player. " Holmes said. "When you start chasing need, it's like, well, that need might make sense for right now at this time, but what we make these picks for future investments.  I think you get trouble chasing needs sometimes and if you're depending on a rookie, that, you know, you do the best you can. But nobody has a crystal ball, you know. So it could be, it could be a tough world to live in." 

Holmes' big thing seems to be that he doesn't want the Lions to be too reactive to what happens at the end of each season because you'll just never be able to catch it, and you'll be chasing it forever. That's why the Lions don't look at what the defensive line looked like in the Wild Card round, they look at what it looked like in Week 6. They don't look at the defense at the end of the year, they look at it in Week 11, when it was a top-five defense in DVOA.  

Obviously that's not going to quell Lions fans' desires to find that premier guy, and I'm telling you, the Lions probably want that guy too. But they're not going to take a guy just because he's an edge rusher. They're just not going to do that.

So when they get to 28 and maybe they feel like they don't like any of the guys who are available at that junction, don't be surprised if they push it off to a spot where they feel like they can get a guy they like at a value elsewhere so they can get a player they love at a different position at 28. That could be an offensive lineman, a receiver, or maybe it's a position you're not even thinking about, like quarterback or cornerback. 

At the end of the day, you just have to know that the Lions have a plan, and that plan is to find the best players and not the position.