If the 2026 Detroit Lions are going to turn around their fortune after a frustrating 2025 season, they are going to need their young players to make a big impact. That means getting big contributions from the 2024 draft class that has disappointed thus far, seeing a Year 2 jump from the 2025 class, and even getting some significant playing time from this year\u2019s rookie class.<\/p>\n
It would be unrealistic to expect all of their 2026 NFL Draft picks to contribute in meaningful ways, but on this week\u2019s Midweek Mailbag podcast, we discuss the best and worst-case scenarios for each pick\u2014within the realm of realistic outcomes.<\/p>\n
For example, let\u2019s start with first-round pick Blake Miller. When it comes to worse-case scenarios, it would likely start with him not being able to win the starting job to start the season. Detroit did hype up Larry Borom after free agency, and he has split first-team reps with Miller out of the game, as expected. While it seems very, very unlikely Miller doesn\u2019t win the role before Week 1, the Lions have shown in the past they are willing to give jobs to whoever earns them. And even in this unlikely scenario, Miller likely eventually takes over at some point in his rookie season. You just don\u2019t spend a first-round pick on an offensive tackle unless you think they can ball right away\u2014especially with a player as experienced as Miller.<\/p>\n
But what\u2019s the ceiling for the former Clemson Tiger? Is it possible Miller can somehow make a run at a Pro Bowl or All Pro nod? Or is it too difficult for a rookie player to break into that discussion when offensive linemen are often awarded based on reputation over single seasons?<\/p>\n
Erik Schlitt and I debate the most optimistic and pessimistic outlooks for all of the Lions\u2019 draft class on this week\u2019s episode.<\/p>\n
Other topics this week include (in chronological order):<\/p>\n
Check out this week\u2019s episode on your favorite podcasting platform or using the Spotify embed below. And if you have some time, please leave a rating on Spotify and a review over on Apple Podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you want more Midweek Mailbag, be sure to catch this week\u2019s episode on our Twitch<\/a> and YouTube pages<\/a>, where there is extra bonus content between segments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the 2026 Detroit Lions are going to turn around their fortune after a frustrating 2025 season, they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,449,448,13195,4970,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":["post-915999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-lions","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-lions","tag-detroit-lions-analysis","tag-detroit-lions-draft","tag-detroit-lions-mailbag","tag-detroit-lions-podcasts","tag-detroitlions","tag-football","tag-lions","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116731403546298643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915999","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=915999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/915999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=915999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=915999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=915999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}