Eagles take USC wide receiver Makai Lemon in the first round of NFL Draft: Five thoughts on the pick

USC receiver Makai Lemon is selected by the Philadelphia Eagles as the number 20 pick during the 2026 NFL Draft at Acrisure Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn ImagesThe Eagles moved up three spots in the NFL Draft to select USC wide receiver Makai Lemon with the 20th overall pick in the first round.

>The trade with the Dallas Cowboys cost the team two fourth-round picks (No. 114 and 137) to go from No. 23 to 20 while also netting them a 2027 seventh-round pick.

>Here are five takeaways from the surprise move:

>1. The Eagles are betting big that Lemon can be the catalyst for a new nucleus of offensive talent.

>Going into the first round, I suspected the Eagles’ “Plan A” would be to add a potential blue chip player to the depth chart at offensive tackle. Plan B and C were still quite clear: Add an infusion of youth at other offensive positions in an effort to counterbalance the onslaught of contract extensions coming down the pike for the team’s collection of young defensive drafted in the last few offseasons.

>As Kadyn Proctor and Monroe Freeling went off the board at No. 12 and No. 19, respectively, the early run on offensive line left the Eagles without the Lane Johnson successor they’ve sought for the last few seasons. And as the Eagles’ trade-up range arrived, Lemon was the final player on the Eagles’ board remaining from their top 15 prospects they would have beeen willing to trade up for according to general manager Howie Roseman.

>“We stacked the board 1 through 23. … We broke that 1 through 23 into tiers of guys that we felt we would trade up for. We kind of had a really good sense of who we thought those first 15 guys would be. One of those guys did not go in the first 15 and he was available to us. When we saw that, it was just trying to figure out where we could move up. There wasn’t as much action in that range that maybe we and some people anticipated. We thought that, starting at 15, maybe there would be more action.”

>Roseman sanctioning a trade up the draft board with the Dallas Cowboys for a Biletnikoff Award winner yielded the Eagles DeVonta Smith five years ago. The team doubled down on ushering in a new era of Eagles offense the next day that year with Landon Dickerson in the second round and Kenny Gainwell on Day 3. I’d expect them to operate similarly over the next couple days this year as well with Lemon as the centerpiece.

>2. A.J. Brown’s path out of Philadelphia has been fully paved.

>Any lingering hope that the door was still open for A.J. Brown to fashion a path back into the Eagles future plans was effectively extinguished by this selection. In truth, it probably should have been extinguished already.

>“A.J. Brown replacement” would be an unfair title to give Lemon and the cautionary tale of Treylon Burks as the last receiver to be given it should speak for itself. Still, the Eagles’ receiver room has now become crowded even once Brown’s departure becomes official with Smith as the clear No. 1 set for a significant uptick in usage, Dontayvion Wicks as a complementary piece behind him, and now Lemon likely serving as the No. 2 capable of moving around the formation and operating primarily out of the slot.

>For what it’s worth, Roseman pushed back on the notion that the Eagles already have a trade in place with the New England Patriots involving the star wideout that will become official on June 1. Reading between the lines there, even if the two teams did have an agreement, admitting so would likely be viewed as a circumvention of the league’s rules.

>Instead, Roseman offered his company line regarding Brown:

>“For us, A.J. is a member of the Eagles,” Roseman said. “We don’t have any trades that have been made or that done. And I think for us, you know, we’re taking this one day at a time.”

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman looks on before the NFC Championship game at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images3. Roseman’s trade-up was well warranted.

>The number of different scenarios the Eagles front office plays out in the lead-up to the draft paid off in a major way Thursday, with Roseman reading the terrain perfectly with his move up the draft board.

>Lemon confirmed that he was actually on the phone with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was expecting to get taken 21st overall while the Eagles were trying to get in touch with him about their decision to move up.

>“They really wanted me,” Lemon said. “So I’m all in. They’re going to get everything that I’ve got.”

>Roseman acknowledged there were “not many” simulations the team did in the last few weeks that ended with them moving up for Lemon, but they did exist. The Los Angeles Rams taking quarterback Ty Simpson 15th overall and the New York Jets selecting tight end Kenyon Sadiq took Lemon’s two biggest suitors off the board, which left the Eagles with only the Steelers to leapfrog at the expense of some Day 3 draft capital.

4. What type of player are the Eagles getting in Lemon?

>There are some similarities between Lemon and Smith as prospects — both were undersized, but highly productive receivers for big college programs — but the most flattering comparisons for Lemon (Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jaxon Smith-Njigba) focus more on his physicality after the catch rather than the route-running polish and body control that made Smith such a highly touted prospect.

>That’s the optimistic view for Lemon, who is just 21 years old and finished last season with 79 catches for 1,156 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. He should be an ideal fit in Mannion’s scheme because of his ability to find space against zone coverage, his reliable hands and his physical run-after-the-catch ability.

>The concern pops up when you look at the margin for error teams have had when taking receivers with this size profile, as spelled in our draft expert Fran Duffy’s Draft Guide:

No arguing Makai Lemon's production, and I get not overweighing certain traits at WR

That said…here's the list of all WRs with at least 3.00 career yards per route run in college

Followed by that same list, looking only at WRs under 6'0/200 lbs

TIGHT needle to thread https://t.co/JhOH2FCqHlpic.twitter.com/1fbHssKQwg

— Fran Duffy (@FDuffyNFL) February 24, 2026 Lemon doesn’t have the top-end speed of the majority of the players who hit in the cluster of receivers listed above, which is a legitimate concern, and his reps against the Notre Dame secondary last season show that he’s not going to be reliable winning against press coverage.

>Still, the pathway for him to succeed is still a relatively clear one. If Mannion can find ways to move him around the formation and get the ball in his hands in space, he’s got the attributes to be a reliable player early on and the upside to become a high-volume player similar to St. Brown or Smith-Njigba.

>Which leads to my final thought …

>5. Lemon’s addition makes it even more glaring: The Eagles offense, and Jalen Hurts with it, needs to change.

>Analyzing the fit for Lemon in what we expect for this Eagles offense, three key figures in the Eagles organization stand out as the ones who will have a major influence on whether Lemon reaches his ceiling.

>The first? Jalen Hurts. Lemon is more than capable of operating outside the numbers, but some of his primary strengths in college were finding space against zone coverage, working over the middle of the field on underneath routes, and consistently making defenders wrong on option routes. None of these align perfectly with Hurts’ skill set and would require a heightened comfortability from the 27-year-old attacking tight windows in zone coverages and throwing over the middle of the field.

>The second person? Mannion. As mentioned above, Lemon isn’t the type of receiver you’re going to simply line up in a stagnant offense and tell to go win his matchups. Translation: He wouldn’t be ideal for the offense the Eagles ran for most of the 2025 season. Getting the most out of Lemon will require creativity from Mannion to use the rookie the way many Sean McVay-Kyle Shanahan offenses use players like Smith-Njigba and Puka Nacua. Those offenses have widened the pathway for a player like Lemon who isn’t going to win against press man coverage with as much consistency as conventional first-round receiver prospects might, but he’s got the skill set to be a real weapon in a creative system that gets him on the move and minimizes those weaknesses.

>And the third … DeVonta Smith. For as much talk as there’s been in this piece about Smith-Njibga and Nacua in relation to Lemon, Smith is the player that will actually have the chance to produce at the level of the other No. 1 wideouts who have thrived in systems like the one Mannion is bringing. Looking at the post-Brown receiver room the Eagles have now built, the onus will be on Smith to be the player many in the organization believe he can be. A 150-plus target player who is capable of putting up gaudy numbers as the featured member of the offense. It’s a strong bet to make for the Eagles, but one that will determine whether Lemon can settle in as a complementary piece early in his career.