Lions could draft QB to sit behind Jared Goff?

Shortly after the 2021 NFL regular season concluded, Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes offered high praise for quarterback Jared Goff, who had just finished his first campaign with the organization and, per Holmes, "played really good football" after some "tweaks" and "changes" were made. 

The rebuilding Lions finished 3-13-1 and, thus, weren't involved in trade discussions regarding star signal-callers such as Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson. As noted by Spotrac, though, the Lions could realistically afford to move on from Goff's contract as soon as next offseason. Thus, Holmes was asked at the league's annual meetings on Tuesday about potentially grabbing Goff's eventual replacement in the first round of next month's draft. 

"Sure, I could see some advantage of there is a young quarterback that can learn under Jared," Holmes remarked, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. "I don’t think Jared would have any issues taking on that role. He’s had more younger guys with less experience behind him, so he’d be very comfortable with that." 

Detroit possesses picks No. 2, No. 32 and No. 34 in the upcoming player-selection process. For a mock draft updated last week, Chris Trapasso of CBS Sports predicted the Lions will spend the second overall pick on former Liberty Flames quarterback Malik Willis.  

"Obviously, the quarterback position is extremely critical to any team’s success," Holmes added during his comments. "That goes without saying. But again, we have a lot of confidence in Jared. Again, we’re all about putting him in the best position to succeed. And if we do that and our confidence that we have with him, and we talked about the continuity that we have coming back with not only the receivers but the coaching staff, offensive line, we’re very confident in Jared and what he can do."