Ex-USC receiver Makai Lemon played phone tag with teams during draft
Former USC wide receiver Makai Lemon was in Pittsburgh Thursday night — and it looked like he would be there for the long haul.
Until, suddenly, it wasn’t.
About two hours into the first round of the NFL draft, Lemon was sitting in the green room — backstage for players waiting to be selected — when he received a call from the host city’s home team. A celebration erupted around the former Los Alamitos High star when he was informed the Steelers were set to select him with the 21st overall pick.
Lemon had a question:
“Why is Philly calling me?”
It turns out Pittsburgh general manager Omar Khan was a little premature with that call. The Dallas Cowboys were still on the clock at 20th, but they needed to sign a defensive player. And that’s what they did with UCF edge rusher Malachi Lawrence — but only after trading with an NFC East rival at No. 23.
The Philadelphia Eagles made a last-second deal to outplay the Steelers and snatch Lemon in real time. Green room footage shows a confused Lemon, still on the phone with Pittsburgh, but someone in the room with him tells him, “Philly just traded for you! …Philly is taking you right now!”
“I answered the phone and it was the Steelers,” Lemon told reporters afterward. “My phone kept ringing. I look and it was the Eagles. They traded and they were going to get me. I feel like everything happened for a reason. They traded, so it means a lot that they really wanted me. So I’m all in, and they’re going to get everything I have.”
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman acknowledged in a news conference that “it took us a few minutes to contact the player” after they got into position to select him.
“The clock went down a little lower than we would have liked,” Roseman said, “but we were able to get in touch with him and obviously select him.”
Roseman was asked if the Eagles made the move because they believed the Steelers were about to draft Lemon at No. 21 overall.
“We just felt like he was a player we wanted to get, just based on where our board was at that time, where we were picking,” Roseman said. “I just felt like it made a lot of sense given our board. And obviously when you have a player that you like who’s ranked higher on your board than where you’re picking, you think with every pick that he’s going to be selected.
“That’s the way the draft goes, you think everyone thinks the same way you do. And so certainly for us, we didn’t want to sit idly by. We wanted to go get him. And that’s why I made a trade.”
The Steelers pivoted quickly, selecting Arizona State offensive tackle Max Iheanachor moments later.
Last season at USC, Lemon was a consensus All-American and won the Biletnikoff Award for Outstanding Receiver after making 79 catches for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns. In his three seasons with the Trojans, Lemon had 137 catches for 2,008 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Lemon’s arrival in Philadelphia seems to indicate that the Eagles are ready to move on from star wide receiver AJ Brown, who is rumored to be on the trading block. If they wait until June 1 to trade Brown, the Eagles could spread his $40 million salary cap hit over two seasons.
Roseman had no light to shed on the matter Thursday evening.
“AJ is a member of the Eagles,” Roseman said. “We don’t have any trades that have been made or are being made. We’re taking this one day at a time. We’re going to look to improve the team tomorrow. We’ll continue to address everything we have to do with our roster, not only during this draft weekend, but we’ll continue to look for ways to improve the team throughout the offseason and into training camp.”
