B-
Detroit Lions
The Lions did the meat-and-potatoes work well: B-.
by Welp ·
2026 NFL Draft
· 9 picks
· 1 steals
· 3 reaches
The Lions spent real capital to be 36 picks early on Dani Dennis-Sutton, and the board is going to hold them to it.
If one pick saves this weekend, it is Kilgore. They punted on safety, and it is the miss that keeps the grade honest.
On the needs board they went 5 of 9, with cornerback the one that mattered most. Building through the lines is a philosophy, and they stuck to it.
In sum, a sturdy weekend with one asterisk, the safety spot they never got to.
Pick-by-Pick
In the 17th pick they get protection for the quarterback. It fills the loudest need on the roster.
Dani Dennis-Sutton at the Round 2 slot is the pick scouts circle, and not in a good way. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
Jalon Kilgore in slot 118 is a bargain the rest of the room will envy. Better still, it is exactly the hole they had to fill.
Trey Zuhn III in Round 4, Pick 28 is fair value, right on his grade. This was priority one on the needs board, and now it is handled.
Zxavian Harris in the 157th overall pick is exactly on the number, no argument either way. A minor need, but a need all the same.
They paid sticker price for Kaleb Elarms-Orr in No. 181, and that is fine. One more legitimate question on the roster, answered.
Cole Payton at the 205th overall pick is a sound buy, the sort that quietly helps a class. A need, and now a little less of one.
A swing that ignored the value entirely, Jimmy Rolder well ahead of where he belonged. It shores up a spot that genuinely needed the help.
A wild overpay on Andre Fuller in the Round 7 slot, the sort that defines a class for the wrong reasons. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.