New Orleans Saints<\/a>, who are very much in need of another playmaker.<\/p>\n“Lemon is a great player in space,\u201d Klatt said \u201cThere isn\u2019t a player in this draft who has the feel for space like Lemon does. He operates in the middle of the field as well as anyone. He thrived for USC in that role, and he just understands football. He knows how to work coverage and is great with the ball in his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Saints recently picked up running back Travis Etienne Jr. in free agency to plays alongside wide receiver Chris Olave and talented tight end Juwan Johnson. Their goal is seemingly to make things easier for quarterback Tyler Shough, who at times looked like the best rookie QB in the league last season. Adding Lemon to the mix would do exactly that, and would help further the development of Shough in hopes of him taking a big jump in year two.<\/p>\n
Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 18, 2026, 2:46 p.m. PT Entering the 2026 NFL Draft, USC wide receiver Makai Lemon is in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2076],"tags":[95878,7,896,55,2572,2571,6,397,98210,96358,97116,95882,97125,96255,104096,113969,107935,95896,96129,95888,96683,95895,96680,96684,95906,96839,95883,96046,98212,95881],"class_list":["post-820632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-saints","tag-accessfree","tag-football","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanssaints","tag-nfl","tag-saints","tag-sstssportscollegetrojansfootball","tag-sstsnfootball","tag-tag2026-nfl-draft","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagchris-olave","tag-tagfox-sports","tag-tagjuwan-johnson","tag-tagkellen-moore","tag-taglincoln-riley","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnew-orleans-saints","tag-tagnfl","tag-tagnfl-draft","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagnfl-overreactions","tag-tagnfl-scouting-combine","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsouthern-california-trojans-football","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagtravis-etienne-jr","tag-tagusc-trojans","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}