General manager Martin Mayhew hasn't publicly ruled out the possibility the Lions sign a high-priced free agent like defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth this offseason, but it sounds more and more like it's not going to happen, either.

“The important thing for us though is that we can't put our eggs in one basket,” Mayhew said over breakfast with beat reporters Friday morning at the NFL combine. “We have a number of needs offensively and on the defensive side of the ball, and we're going to try to address as many of those as we can. And we're not one player away. You start seeing some of these contracts that are getting done now, you start thinking that you're going to have to spend a little bit more than what you thought you had to spend a couple months ago.”

As coach Jim Schwartz did Thursday, Mayhew stopped short of identifying the Lions' biggest positional area of need.

“We had quite a few guys playing who were stopgap type of players and the problem with those players is when you have several of them playing then you have several holes when the season's over,” Mayhew said. “We're coming off an 0-16 season and you had several guys starting for us who were just kind of one-year band-aids at the position defensively, and now we have to go out and fill those needs as well as the other needs that just come up naturally. So we have a lot of holes on defense.”