{"id":174673,"date":"2026-04-24T08:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/174673\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:08:13","slug":"philadelphia-eagles-select-makai-lemon-in-first-round-of-2026-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/174673\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Eagles select Makai Lemon in first round of 2026 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

USC<\/a> head coach Lincoln Riley<\/a> has done it again. Another one of his wide receivers is heading to the NFL after a successful college career. This time, it\u2019s Makai Lemon<\/a>, who was just taken by the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. Lemon will leave Pittsburgh as the No. 20 overall pick.<\/p>\n

Weirdly enough, the Eagles traded with a major rival to make this pick. The Dallas Cowboys originally held No. 20, only to let the NFC East foe move up three spots.<\/p>\n

Technically, there was no better receiver in college football this season. Lemon won the Biletnikoff Award after putting up gaudy numbers during the 2026 season. He caught 79 passes for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns. This was Lemon\u2019s third season in Riley\u2019s system, finally breaking out on the national stage.<\/p>\n

Good numbers were put up as a sophomore, though. In 12 games played, Lemon went for 764 yards on 52 receptions. The biggest difference between the two seasons is the touchdowns, as Lemon just caught three in 2024.<\/p>\n

Now, the goal is to do something similar at the NFL level. Lemon should transition into the league with quite ease, hoping to impact the offense from Day One.<\/p>\n

Lemon played high school football at Los Alamitos<\/a> (CA), where he was a four-star prospect. He was the No. 39 overall recruit in the 2023 cycle<\/a>, according to the Rivals Industry Ranking<\/a>, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.<\/p>\n

What NFL Draft analysts are saying about Makai Lemon<\/p>\n

Lance Zierlein of NFL.com produced a scouting report on Lemon ahead of the draft. He was the second-highest-ranked receiver throughout the process. Zierlein had Lemon as a first-round guy the entire way, eventually coming true.<\/p>\n

A comparison was even part of the evaluation. Turns out, Lemon is similar to another former USC wide receiver \u2014 Amon-Ra St. Brown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh-skill, high-volume slot receiver with average size but extraordinary ball skills,\u201d Zierlein said<\/a>. \u201cLemon has room for refinement, but not much. He\u2019s intelligent, confident and polished with the ability to make plays on all three levels. Tempo-driven route-runner who misdirects man coverage and separates out of turns but is fairly average after the catch. Quicker than fast, featuring early acceleration to open seam throws but flashes late burst when needed. <\/p>\n

\u201cMore play strength is needed for NFL press and he needs to avoid rushing through multi-breaking routes. He\u2019s an exceptional ball-tracker with excellent catch timing and few focus drops. He wins more combat catches than he loses. Lemon is a plug-and-play, quarterback-friendly talent with first-round value and Pro Bowl upside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USC head coach Lincoln Riley has done it again. Another one of his wide receivers is heading to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[73187,69,71,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-174673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-makai-lemon-23-los-alamitos","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}