{"id":874919,"date":"2026-04-26T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T06:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/874919\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T06:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T06:00:17","slug":"illinois-qb-luke-altmyer-signs-udfa-deal-with-detroit-lions-after-2026-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/874919\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois QB Luke Altmyer signs UDFA deal with Detroit Lions after 2026 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Illinois<\/a> quarterback Luke Altmyer<\/a> is signing a UDFA deal with the Detroit Lions, On3\u2019s Pete Nakos<\/a> reported. He went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last season, Altmyer had career highs. He threw for 3,007 yards, 22 touchdowns, five interceptions and a 67.4% completion percentage. Over the course of his career with Ole Miss<\/a> and Illinois, Altmyer had 7,924 yards, 60 touchdowns, 24 interceptions and a 63.7% completion percentage.<\/p>\n

As a member of the Class of 2021, Altmyer was a four-star recruit out of Starkville (Miss.) High, according to the Rivals Industry Ranking<\/a>. He was the No. 5 overall prospect in the state, the No. 21 quarterback in the class and the No. 207 overall prospect in the class.<\/p>\n

Altmyer spent five years playing college football with hopes of getting to Indianapolis for the Combine as part of his NFL journey. During that time, he played for two coaches with vastly different backgrounds. He began his career at\u00a0Ole Miss under\u00a0Lane Kiffin<\/a>\u00a0before transferring to Illinois under\u00a0Bret Bielema<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember as a kid, going into college, I wrote down in a notebook some goals that I\u2019ve always dreamed about achieving,\u201d Altmyer recently told On3 via Zoom on behalf of\u00a0U.S. Cellular<\/a>. \u201cThe Combine was, really, one of the four of them. Just being there and competing in the Combine, knowing I did some good things in college. To be able to live that out, I don\u2019t take it for granted. Super stoked to do it. I\u2019m going to make the most of it. I\u2019m preparing very hard for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coaches that I\u2019ve played for prepared me for it, as well. Playing for such an offensive mind in Coach Kiffin and the way he\u2019s able to think out of the box, and playing for a more old-school guy and defensive-minded coach in Coach Bielema, who really changed the course of my career and believed in me and taught me so many things.\u201d<\/p>\n

What NFL Draft analysts are saying about Luke Altmyer<\/p>\n

NFL.com\u2019s Lance Zierlein broke down Altmyer ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft. You can read his evaluation below.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree-year starter with solid passing production relative to the lack of protection he saw in 2025,\u201d he wrote<\/a>. \u201cAltmyer has experience in pro passing concepts and shows decent eye discipline\/patience to give the play a chance. He throws with adequate anticipation into zone windows but a slower operation time and lack of arm talent hurt his chances of beating tight man coverage. <\/p>\n

\u201cEdge pressure sneaks up on him and he hasn\u2019t learned to avoid sacks often enough. Altmyer could have a tough time beating out pro backups for a roster spot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Illinois quarterback Luke Altmyer is signing a UDFA deal with the Detroit Lions, On3\u2019s Pete Nakos reported.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,15525,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-874919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-luke-altmyer-21-starkville","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116469486311634538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874919","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=874919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}