There are 32 slots in the first round of the NFL draft, but that doesn’t mean the teams see 32 players worthy of being selected in the first round. Detroit Lions GM Brad Holmes revealed in a recent interview that his scouting staff didn’t even have half the number of players with first-round grades as there are picks in the first round for 2023.
During a very engaging interview with NFL Network’s Peter Schrager, Holmes declared that the Lions issued just 14 first-round grades to players in the last draft class.
“In a normal year, you’ll have like true first-round talent players, you might have about 17 or 18 guys,” Holmes said. “I really haven’t seen any higher than 20 in all the years that I’ve been doing it.”
Holmes then dropped the info,
“We ended up with 14 guys, and that was at the very end.”
Detroit drafted two of them: RB Jahmyr Gibbs at No. 12 and LB Jack Campbell at No. 18. Holmes added about Campbell,
“When I say there was only 14 guys, Jack Campbell wasn’t 14th. You know what I mean, so, that’s why it was easy.”
It’s not uncommon at all for different teams to have divergent evaluations of players and the number of first-round grades given out. Holmes actually revealing the number, and how low the number was in 2023, is information that validates that fact and is info that we don’t normally get.