Lions GM Brad Holmes on dealing with high expectations: 'Not scared'

The last time the Lions won a division title, Bill Clinton was in his first year as president and Beanie Babies were the hottest toys on the market. Snoop Dogg released his first album and movie fans flocked to see Schindlers List.

In other words, it’s been a while. Try three decades. But because of the way the Lions ended their season last year, the entire city remains convinced Detroit finally will win a division title, Back in 1993, the Lions won the NFC’s Central Division. They’re now vying for the NFC North. Fans are so excited that the team sold out season tickets at Ford Field for the first time since 2002, the year the stadium opened.

General Manager Brad Holmes welcomes the escalating expectations for what will be the team’s 90th season. Maybe they’ll be an elite team in the NFL instead of an afterthought.

“I do think that we took our medicine in the past couple years,” Holmes said in an interview with ESPN. He mentioned that he and coach Dan Campbell “talk about it all the time. We’ve coached the Senior Bowl. We had to do Hard Knocks. (And) we’ve done all that.

“We’ve gone through a lot of darkness to get to this point,” Holmes said. “But that’s where the grit comes in place in terms of just not really wavering and put your head down or get discouraged. And we just kind of put the focus in building the best roster that we can and really getting the best football players.”

Remember those expectations? Detroit opens season against Chiefs, the Super Bowl champs

We’ll know how well the Lions are handling expectations next Thursday. The league selected them to play the Chiefs, the defending Super Bowl champions, at Arrowhead Stadium to open the NFL season. Jared Goff squares off against Patrick Mahomes. No pressure there.

So why the hype for 2023? Remember that the Lions started 2022 by losing five of their first six games. However, Detroit finished with an 8-2 record. That included a season finale road win over the Packers. Their victory at Lambeau Field knocked Green Bay out of the playoffs and gave Aaron Rodgers a very bad memory of his last game as a Packer.

The Lions are favored to win the division over the Vikings, Packers and Bears. ESPN Stats & Information noted that it’s the first time oddsmakers favored Detroit to win the NFC North since the NFL created the division in 2002.

“We’re not scared of the expectations,” Holmes said. “The expectations are earned through, I think, what we’ve built and what we’ve done up until this point in terms of how we finished the end of the season and through our player acquisition process. But now we’ve got to just prove them right.”