Right now it feels like Brad Holmes made a big mistake on the Lions defense for the second year in a row

The Detroit Lions and GM Brad Holmes had a solid offseason. The rebuild of the cornerback room and the addition of DJ Reader is going to have an impact on the Lions defense for sure. But there is one spot where Holmes didn't make the best decison and right now it's looking even worse.

That's the edge rusher position. The Lions struggled getting sacks last season and the thought was that they would go out and either sign or draft a solid edge rusher at some point. That didn't happen. They instead sign Marcus Davenport. The former Saint can be really good when he's healthy. The problem is that he rarely is.

Since coming to Detroit he's already had an injury at OTAs and now he's starting camp on the PUP list . This is the guy that's theoretically supposed to be the Lions number two guy on the edge this year and there's already injury concerns.

The Lions were never going to go out and sign the top edge rushers like Danielle Hunter or Jonathan Greenard, but they had shots with guys like D.J. Wonnum or A.J. Epenessa and didn't take those shots. It wouldn't have been much more expensive.

This is the second year in a row that the Lions have ignored the edge rusher spot. The Lions didn't add anyone in the 2023 offseason when they had to the chance to and then they didn't make a move at the trade deadline either. The latter was the right play in the long run , but doing nothing in the offseason turned out to be a problem.

So what now? The Reader addition really does help things along the line. He can be a space eater with Alim McNeill and help the guys on the edge get home. The secondary should help things with good coverage too. But will that be enough?

There's just so many questions at the moment. Is James Houston ready to stay on the field all game? Can John Cominsky bounce back? Is Josh Paschal ready to take the next step? Can Mathieu Betts make the roster? Can Levi Onwuzurike stay in the rotation all year? Is Mekhi Wingo switching to edge? Can Marcus Davenport stay healthy?

You hope that all these questions get positive answers and maybe they will. Maybe Davenport gets healthy at camp and then stays healthy for a full season for the first time in his career. That just seems like a bad thing that this what a team with Super Bowl aspirations is relying on.

This isn't the end of the road or anything like that. The Lions defense was relatively solid in 2023 despite their sack problem. They were 13th in defensive DVOA and they still have a lot of the pieces that helped them achieve that. They can stop the run and if that secondary comes through, they can be even better. But they really needed someone to help Aidan Hutchinson put pressure on quarterbacks and right now we don't know who that's going to be, or if it's going to be someone on this current roster.

Related: The 10 biggest questions the Lions have to answer at training camp