Lions show Raiders how quickly a rebuild can bear fruit

DETROIT — The Detroit Lions, of all franchises, are showing the rest of the NFL how to decisively and expeditiously orchestrate a rebuild.

The Raiders, and many others, should be taking notes.

Step one is being brutally honest. Step two is not wasting time questioning what needs to be done and just doing it.

Step three is being upfront with fans about the plan, however initially painful it might be. Step four is making sound personnel decisions.

Step five is enjoying the fruits of that labor as a team on the rise in the NFL, as the Lions (5-2) prepare to host the Raiders (3-4) on “Monday Night Football.”

By using that process, Detroit has lapped some teams that try to win now and rebuild simultaneously and end up stuck in perpetual no man’s land.

“It’s widely known that we tore it down pretty good when we first got here, and it was intentional,” Lions general manager Brad Holmes told the media last summer. “We had a plan of what we were trying to do.”

The Lions’ big decision was trading longtime quarterback Matthew Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams, which also required Detroit to be open-minded about the quarterback they got in return, Jared Goff (along with two first-round draft picks and a third-rounder).

Detroit stripped the rest of the roster to the bare minimum and rebuilt from the ground up.

Now, with the trade deadline looming, Lions coach Dan Campbell said he wants to be careful about disrupting what is already in place.

“I don’t ever want to do anything that’s going to mess the chemistry of this team up,” Campbell told the Detroit Free Press. “Cause we got the right guys here right now.”

The Lions tore the Band-Aid off three years ago with the arrival of Holmes, one of the point men in the Rams’ recent success, and Campbell, a high-energy former NFL tight end. Lions decision-makers went against the grain by hiring each independently of the other.

The first time Holmes and Campbell met was via a text facilitated by Lions president Rod Wood, who was part of the search committee that wanted to find two leaders who didn’t have a prior working relationship, but whose individual thoughts and views could organically mesh together.

The magic that ensued is undeniable. The Lions, long one of the biggest laughingstocks in professional sports, sit atop the NFC North standings, boasting a roster brimming with young talent led by Goff, who has found new life in Motown.

The decision to immediately move on from Stafford eliminated the Lions’ safety net, and they predictably fell from five wins in 2020 in Matt Patricia’s last season to a 3-13-1 mark in 2021 that included an 11-game winless streak (one tie) to start the season.

The pain was not without benefit. Thanks to a series of draft day trades in 2022 and this year, the Lions ultimately turned the three draft picks they got for Stafford into six players — safety Ifeatu Melifonwu, wide receiver Jameson Williams, defensive lineman Josh Paschal, running back Jahmyr Gibbs, tight end Sam LaPorta and defensive lineman Brodric Martin.

Meanwhile, the losing in 2020 and 2021 also meant better draft positioning, which is how the Lions ended up with a franchise offensive tackle in Penei Sewell and an equally impactful defense end in Aidan Hutchinson.

Lastly, while so many considered Goff merely a necessary piece to facilitate the salary cap implications of the Stafford deal, the Lions welcomed him. It helped that Holmes was part of the decision-making process to draft Goff No. 1 overall in 2016 while with the Rams.

“I never thought of him of just a bridge or stopgap or whatever just because I was all around the success he had early in his career in LA,” Holmes told the NFL+ streaming network. “It seems like when he got here when the trade was made that all that success was forgotten about. It was just this narrative that he was just a bridge. I always thought that was a lazy narrative.”

Two years later, Goff is firmly entrenched as the Lions’ quarterback of the present and future.

“I believe we’re right on track,” Holmes told WXYT-FM in Detroit. “You can make an argument that we’re a little ahead of schedule.”

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on X.