{"id":217626,"date":"2026-03-13T04:57:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217626\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T04:57:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:57:14","slug":"makai-lemons-combine-podium-didnt-bother-nfl-team-executives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/217626\/","title":{"rendered":"Makai Lemon’s combine podium didn’t bother NFL team executives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Makai Lemon<\/a> got another chance Thursday to demonstrate his skills for NFL scouts.<\/p>\n

About 50 of them \u2014 representatives from each of the 32 teams \u2014 gathered at USC<\/a> to spend a few hours evaluating the school\u2019s latest class of draft prospects. Lemon, who won the Biletnikoff Award<\/a> last fall as college football\u2019s top receiver, had everyone\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunning good routes, catching the ball, running fast,\u201d he said of his objectives for the day. \u201cWhatever I showcase, let them know I can do it at a high level.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a more comfortable setting than Indianapolis. At the scouting combine, Lemon\u2019s performance at the podium drew scrutiny \u2014 not for anything he said, but for how he said it. He swayed. He was measured, unhurried, visibly unbothered. Some read it as detached. Others saw something else entirely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want a guy who\u2019s phony and coached up,\u201d said one team executive, speaking on condition of anonymity. \u201cWe want a guy to be his authentic self. As long as he\u2019s not a jerk, we love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rams general manager Les Snead<\/a>, who attended Thursday\u2019s workout of 17 USC players, put it another way. \u201cAt the combine you\u2019re usually getting some version of a personality,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of times it\u2019s, \u2018This is my interview personality,\u2019 and that\u2019s not necessarily who they are 365 days a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"USC <\/p>\n

USC receiver Makai Lemon catches pass during a drill at the NFL combine in Indianapolis last month.<\/p>\n

(Julio Cortez \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

The other USC prospects who participated in Thursday\u2019s workouts were receivers Ja\u2019Kobi Lane, Jaden Richardson and Jay Fair; running back Eli Sanders; tight end Lake McRee; offensive linemen J\u2019Onre Reed and DJ Wingfield; defensive linemen Anthony Lucas and Keeshawn Silver; linebacker Eric Gentry; cornerbacks DJ Harvey and DeCarlos Nicholson; safeties Bishop Fitzgerald and Kamari Ramsey; punter Sam Johnson; and long snapper Hank Pepper.<\/p>\n

Former Trojan linebacker Mason Cobb, who was on the team in 2024, also participated.<\/p>\n

Lemon\u2019s credentials are not in dispute. He finished last season with 79 catches for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns. At 5-foot-11 and 192 pounds he\u2019s not big for the position, and according to a school release ran the 40 in 4.46 seconds, which is fast but not blistering. But those aren\u2019t his main strengths.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the underrated aspects when you\u2019re watching wide receivers is toughness, and he kind of oozes toughness,\u201d said Daniel Jeremiah, lead draft analyst for NFL Network. \u201cHe catches everything. He\u2019s super strong physically and super strong to the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

The technical detail that stands out for Jeremiah: Lemon doesn\u2019t leave his feet to catch unless he has to. He stays grounded, keeps himself in position to do something after the ball arrives. Receivers who lunge and cradle in the air have nowhere to go. Receivers who catch with their feet under them turn completions into more yards.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a really good feel for the game,\u201d Jeremiah said. \u201cI think he\u2019s going to be a high-volume guy. I think he\u2019ll catch 90-plus balls every year and be the quarterback\u2019s best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snead, who has a history of finding productive receivers that others miss \u2014 among them Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua \u2014 is skeptical of the 40 as a measuring stick.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou rarely see a route in football where the receiver runs straight for 40 yards and then makes his break,\u201d he said. \u201cEven on a go route you\u2019re usually trying to get an edge on the defender, so you\u2019re not running straight. The 40 might tell you how many gears you have in your body. But sometimes you need to run a route in third gear and then shift into fourth or fifth, or decelerate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremiah ranks Lemon among the two best receivers in this draft, giving a slight edge to Ohio State\u2019s Carnell Tate, who projects as more of a down-the-field, big-play threat. Comparisons to Detroit\u2019s Amon-Ra St. Brown (also a former USC player) and Tampa Bay\u2019s Emeka Egbuka have circulated. Jeremiah sees those, but also reaches back to Jarvis Landry, the former Louisiana State standout who made five Pro Bowl appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually think Lemon is a better player than Jarvis Landry coming out,\u201d Jeremiah said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re instinctive, you\u2019re tough and you catch everything, that\u2019s a pretty high floor. Absolute worst case, you\u2019re going to have a steady, dependable, reliable player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watching from the sideline Thursday was Marqise Lee, who won the Biletnikoff in 2012 \u2014 the only other USC player to do so \u2014 and was a second-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2014. He has spent much of the past several months as a mentor to Lemon, and when the combine criticism arrived Lee wasn\u2019t surprised by any of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest thing to him was just enjoy it,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI know he got a lot of backlash about the media stuff and things like that, but when you know the guy, he\u2019s not a big talker. He\u2019s calm, he\u2019s all about business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee believes Lemon has the skills to thrive at the next level, but knows how much context matters once a player gets there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe league is different until you actually get there and get the opportunity to practice and go through it,\u201d Lee said. \u201cSome people have a hard time adapting. Once he gets on a team I\u2019ll be texting him: \u2018How\u2019s the comfort level? How\u2019s the offense?\u2019 Because that stuff matters. Offensive coordinator, people loving you \u2014 all that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lemon, for his part, already sounds like someone who has thought about this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go in there and be myself,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t want to try to be anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Makai Lemon got another chance Thursday to demonstrate his skills for NFL scouts. About 50 of them \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4472,320,1321,99792,99794,6135,48,52,51,47,50,49,28998,99793,56385,10807,22025,427,2429,10255,1539],"class_list":["post-217626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ball","tag-chance","tag-college-football","tag-daniel-jeremiah","tag-draft-prospect","tag-guy","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-makai-lemon","tag-marqise-lee","tag-receiver","tag-route","tag-skill","tag-team","tag-thursday","tag-workout","tag-yard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}