{"id":892143,"date":"2026-09-14T22:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T22:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892143\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T22:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T22:06:15","slug":"makai-lemon-had-a-quiet-nfl-debut-but-came-up-with-a-big-block-on-the-games-biggest-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/892143\/","title":{"rendered":"Makai Lemon Had a Quiet NFL Debut, But Came Up With a Big Block on the Game’s Biggest Play"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n Eagles
\n <\/a><\/p>\n


\n \"Matt
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Sep<\/p>\n

Bill Streicher-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Makai Lemon didn\u2019t exactly pop in the Eagles\u2019 Week 1 win over the Commanders. The rookie receiver\u2019s stat line was pretty awful: he caught 3 of his 4 targets for -5 receiving yards (with catches of 3, -5, and -3 yards). Operating as the Eagles\u2019 WR3 and playing 36 of 56 offensive snaps (64.3%), most of Lemon\u2019s targets came on quick screens (which, as Kinker already wrote about today, were very bad<\/a>) and plays around or behind the line of scrimmage \u2014 and in the opportunities he had, he certainly didn\u2019t capitalize.<\/p>\n

None of that stuff is good. I\u2019m not saying it is. What I am saying is that, despite how bad it looks in the box score, Lemon definitely wasn\u2019t a zero on the day. Even though he couldn\u2019t get anything going with the ball in his hands, the rookie positively affected the game in ways that don\u2019t show up on the stat sheet \u2014 like when he put down this truly massive block as Jalen Hurts scrambled on a 3rd and 18 in the fourth quarter:<\/p>\n

Also, Lemon did manage to get open a few times during the game \u2014 Jalen just didn\u2019t connect with him to make the well-run routes count:<\/p>\n

To be clear, I am not one to defend any player if I believe he truly played like ass. I\u2019m not here to sugarcoat. I am here to report. I am a reporter\u2026 Ethical\u2026 A pure journalist\u2026 And I\u2019m being honest when I say I think Makai Lemon is going to be just fine. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s still working his way back from a nagging hamstring injury that plagued him throughout the pre-season. He\u2019s still trying to find a rhythm within the offense, as a rookie, with a quarterback that we all know can be finicky with who he targets and when. If this is what a bad Makai Lemon game looks like, it could\u2019ve been a lot worse. And that makes me excited to see what a good one looks like. <\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He\u2019s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O\u2019Brien\u2019s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don\u2019t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up\u2026)
\n
\nemail: M.Schultz@sportradar.com<\/p>\n

\n You might also like…\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eagles Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Makai Lemon didn\u2019t exactly pop in the Eagles\u2019 Week 1 win over the Commanders.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":892144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-892143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892143","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=892143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}