For anyone thinking this 2026 NFL Draft would be a ho-hum, stay-at-No. 23-in-the-first-round kind of Thursday night … please meet the Philadelphia Eagles and Executive Vice President/General Manager Howie Roseman.
If there is a chance, any chance – cue Jim Carrey from “Dumb And Dumber” – Roseman is going to probe, prowl, and, in fast order, pounce. That’s what he did on Thursday night, moving from the team’s first-round position to No. 20, dealing the Dallas Cowboys the 23rd overall pick, the 114th pick and the 137th selection – both of those picks in the fourth round – to select USC wide receiver Makai Lemon. The Eagles also got a 2027 seventh-round pick in return.
And from the words that Roseman and Head Coach Nick Sirianni said and the way they gushed about Lemon when the first round ended, well, you understood perfectly why the Eagles made the move they did.
In Lemon, they see a tough, complete, and highly productive player who at USC earned first-team All-American honors last season. Lemon’s 2025 campaign was remarkable for the Trojans – he won the Biletnikoff Award as the nation’s top wide receiver, catching 79 passes for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns in 12 games. He was a unanimous first-team Associated Press All-American selection and a first-team All-Big Ten Conference pick.
“When you watch Makai,” Sirianni said as he walked from the post-Round 1 press conference to the Draft Room at the Jefferson Health Training Complex, “you see someone who has the ability to create separation on the outside. Now, you create separation everywhere, but there are more contested catches on the outside sometimes, it feels like. He has insane ability to make contested catches. He’s strong for his size – his body is strong, his hands are strong.
“Sometimes when you’re in the slot, you’re facing more zone coverage – everyone has to win in this league against man coverage and when you’re inside you also have to find zones in an area, some spots to separate – and there is carryover in his game in that respect when he’s inside, too. Both inside and outside, he separates. That’s why I think he’s able to play both inside and outside and do both at a really high level.”