Updated April 1, 2026, 7:07 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Grabbing an early-round EDGE might be a high priority for the Detroit Lions<\/a> in the upcoming 2026 NFL draft. Malachi Lawrence out of UCF is one such possibility who might go within the first two rounds.<\/p>\n Here is the excerpt of my medical report on Malachi Lawrence:<\/a><\/p>\n (Ages in parentheses are at start of 2026 season and are factored into the concern level. Injury info and ages based on available public information are unverified and subject to update. Games played data courtesy of\u00a0sports-reference.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Malachi Lawrence, UCF EDGE<\/p>\n Projected round 2-3.\u00a0#43 on Daniel Jeremiah board March 5<\/a>.\u00a0Ran 4.52 at NFL combine, third-fastest at DE.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Concern level 3\/10<\/p>\n The injury that limited Lawrence in early 2025 will need clarification. If it\u2019s a meniscus, that might not be a short-term issue, but could become an issue down the road. His age will also need verification.<\/p>\n He blew up the combine with the third-fastest 40, second-best broad, and second-best vertical of the DE group. In college, he accumulated 28 tackles for loss and 20 sacks.<\/p>\n For more\u00a0Lions<\/a>\u00a0coverage, follow us on X,\u00a0@TheLionsWire<\/a>, and give our\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0page a like.\u00a0Follow Jimmy on X,\u00a0@JimmyLiaoMD<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated April 1, 2026, 7:07 p.m. ET Grabbing an early-round EDGE might be a high priority for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[95878,146,113,2506,7,147,6,52959,96502,95882,96242,95893,95896,95888,95899,96071,95902,95883,95894,101115,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-848652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-lions","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfllions","16":"tag-sstsnlions","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagdetroit-lions","19":"tag-tagfacebook","20":"tag-tagnational-sports","21":"tag-tagnfl","22":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","23":"tag-tagsmg-timely","24":"tag-tagsport-scores-statistics","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-tagtwitter","27":"tag-taguniversity-of-central-florida","28":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116333483654554619","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848652","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=848652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}