Allen Park — Brad Holmes went onto the podium and hit the lectern with all of his confidence and bravado to begin his season-ending news conference.
The Detroit Lions general manager covered a lot of information in his more than 11-minute opening speech before taking questions for the following half-hour. Holmes stressed that the Lions are not a feel-good, charming narrative, and that they will return. In addition, he went after some detractors and draft commentators with a rolodex of receipts.
MLive’s Dungeon of Doom podcast returned to Allen Park for the tone-setting press conference ahead of the key offseason, following the Lions’ division championship and appearance in the NFC title game. Hosts Kyle Meinke and Ben Raven discuss all of this, as well as the return of the coordinators and whether stud center Frank Ragnow will leave.
“And look, this is what I want to tell our fans: it’s just going to get better, okay? We’re only going to grow better,” Holmes explained. “I don’t want anyone to think this was a one-time, Cinderella-esque wonderful adventure that happened. No, it is real. This is exactly what was intended to happen. And I understand that based on historical events, you have a season like this. It’s easy to believe that this was a one-time, wonderful, lucky, and cute story, which I’m sick of hearing. There was none of that. That is a simple assumption to make, but it is not true.
“Every action Dan and I make is intended to sustain what we’re building. Every single movement. And I will argue that every step we make, as well as every move we do not make, is intended to sustain what we have been developing. So, it is genuine. Look, it’s all about normalizing what we’re doing, okay? This is done to normalize the situation. These are attempts to normalize it. It’s Dan, and the locations Dan’s been were normalized. It has been normalized in the places I’ve visited. That’s why we’re here; we’re bringing this to normalize what it is right now, particularly by putting all of our efforts into normalizing it.”
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