{"id":702345,"date":"2026-05-29T14:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/702345\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T14:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T14:28:18","slug":"makai-lemon-is-projected-to-have-big-nfl-rookie-season-with-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/702345\/","title":{"rendered":"Makai Lemon is projected to have big NFL rookie season with Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a player of Makai Lemon<\/a>‘s caliber, NFL expectations should be high, but pundits have not been unified in their views of the USC star. Lemon should be a great asset to the Philadelphia Eagles<\/a>‘ offense, and he could become a favorite for Jalen Hurts<\/a>, which creates a variety of projections for what his rookie season will look like.<\/p>\n

In a recent article<\/a>, Geoffrey A Knox takes a look at ESPN analyst Mike Clay’s projection for Makai Lemon’s rookie season:<\/p>\n

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ESPN\u2019s Mike Clay recently offered a nice write-up.\u00a0He released his projections for rookie leaders across 10 major statistical categories<\/a>. You guessed it. The\u00a0Eagles<\/a>‘ rookie wide receiver landed among impressive company.<\/p>\n

“Clay projects Lemon to finish third among all rookies in receiving yards (883) while tying for third in receiving touchdowns (five). That would place him behind only\u00a0Tennessee Titans<\/a>\u00a0star Carnell Tate and\u00a0New Orleans Saints<\/a>\u00a0rookie Jordyn Tyson in projected receiving production.<\/p>\n

Here is what Mike Clay said:<\/p>\n

“The outlook for receivers selected from pick No. 20 through the third round is solid but unspectacular. Since 2012, there are 155 WRs in that range who played at least one snap as a rookie. Of that group, 23 (14.8%) reached 800 receiving yards, and 23 hit seven receiving touchdowns. Lemon and the Browns’ duo (Concepcion and Denzel Boston) have a path to substantial Year 1 workloads, but expectations should be kept in check.”<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Makai Lemon showed he can be a #1 receiver at USC, as he was dubbed the best receiver in college football last season. His play style also allows him to be a perfect complement to the #2 receiver behind Devonta Smith<\/a>. Regardless of how you slice it, Lemon can fit any role, and that is why it is safe to assume he will have a productive year 1.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: ESPN analyst views USC’s Makai Lemon as top rookie receiver for 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a player of Makai Lemon‘s caliber, NFL expectations should be high, but pundits have not been unified…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,27248,341976,6579,157200,341974,1249,593,1260,72838,341975,3752,85,1253],"class_list":["post-702345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-devonta-smith","tag-geoffrey-a-knox","tag-jalen-hurts","tag-makai-lemon","tag-mike-clay","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-receiving-yards","tag-rookie-leaders","tag-rookie-season","tag-sports","tag-tennessee-titans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}