Makai Lemon is a wide receiver from USC who is ranked No. 14 on my NFL Draft Top 100 Big Board. This comprehensive scouting report analyzes Lemon’s draft potential, current mock draft trends, and where he ranks among the top prospects.
Makai Lemon’s NFL Draft Potential
Makai Lemon is a star of the 2025 college football season, and it feels inevitable that he’ll command early-to-mid first-round capital in the 2026 NFL Draft. Lemon — a former four-star recruit and Top 50 high school talent on the national stage — flashed promise through a 52-catch, 764-yard, three-touchdown sophomore season in 2024 — but he’s taken his game to an entirely different level in 2025.
Seven games into the season, Lemon has the fourth-highest PFSN CFB WRi rating with a score of 85. Even in an offense that includes potential early-round WR prospect Ja’Kobi Lane, Lemon has secured an almost 30% on-field target percentage. He boasts a stellar 15.93% catch rate over expectation according to TruMedia, his 3.72 yards per route run is the highest mark among Top 100 WR prospects, and his 3.01 yards after catch over expectation is similarly impressive.
The stats tell you what you might expect: Lemon is one of the most complete three-level threats in the 2026 NFL Draft. Despite appearing relatively unassuming at a compact 5’11”, 195 pounds, Lemon is a shrewd catch-point controller with a mastery of late-hands timing, positioning, and body control adjustments.
He’s an explosive, energized mover who weaponizes his elite twitch and deceleration to both off-set and cut tight angles at route stems, and he has the vertical burst to stack. And after the catch, he can breeze and bruise through crowds with his combined evasiveness and size-defying play strength.
The question isn’t so much where Lemon will make his impact at the NFL level, but rather how to juxtapose him alongside Jordyn Tyson and Carnell Tate. Tyson and Tate both have more projectable profiles on the boundary as X and movement-Z receivers.
Lemon theoretically has the foot speed, twitch, and catch-point authority to beat press on the boundary, but alongside Lane, a proportionally high amount of his reps come in the slot. That remains one of the few things Lemon has left to prove, however. He’s a weapon in the mold of Golden Tate, and he’s entering the NFL at the perfect time for his skill set.
CFB Week 9 Update
The USC Trojans were on a bye week in Week 9, but they’ll return to the field to take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Week 10. For Lemon, Nebraska’s defense — while respectable — presents an opportunity, as Lemon will be a mismatch from the slot with his quickness, RAC ability, and steely catching in tight situations. Nebraska’s offense has the firepower to challenge USC head-to-head, so Lemon will be relied upon to build and keep a lead.
CFB Week 10 Update
Makai Lemon was limited to just two catches for 18 yards in Week 10 — a performance that could quietly throw a wrench in his plans to challenge Carnell Tate and Jordyn Tyson for the WR1 mantle. Lemon was targeted just four times, and dropped one of those targets. On his two catches, he made meager use of RAC opportunities, as the fast-flowing defense ensured it bottled up his dynamic ability.
On the vertical plane, Lemon struggled to consistently stack and find space, and wasted motion overtop stems sometimes nullified his separation and allowed defenders back into plays. Jayden Maiava bears just as much blame for the failure of USC’s passing attack in Week 10, but Lemon’s relatively limited short-strider range on the vertical plane is a notable question mark, as it could limit his usage profile in the pros.
CFB Week 11 Update
After a down game against Nebraska, Lemon returned to his dominant early-season form with an 11-catch, 161-yard outing against a hapless Northwestern secondary, in which he both caught a touchdown and ran for a score on a designed jet motion carry. This game had all of the Lemon staples: Energized separation against man coverage, adjustments back to the ball in tough spots, explosive and physical RAC with size-defying contact balance, and that icy aura element with which he takes over select games.
While Lemon still looms as my WR3 behind Tate and Tyson, he’s assuredly still a Top 15 prospect in the class, and a dynamic weapon in-waiting for an NFL offense.
CFB Week 12 Update
Lemon was once again exceptional in Week 12, in a must-win game against the Iowa Hawkeyes. He caught 10 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown, serving as the primary target for Maiava. We saw a lot of the usual staples from Lemon in this game: Body control, clutch catch-point conversion, and efficient separation on one-cut routes. At this point, Lemon’s evaluation is a ceiling one — to weigh his grade in relation to Tate and Tyson — but his NFL utility in the slot and as a movement-Z is all too clear.
Where Is Lemon Being Selected Most Often in the PFSN Mock Draft Simulator?
Lemon currently holds the No. 11 overall rank among prospects, placing him among the first-round caliber prospects. His most recent Average Draft Position (ADP) of 15.3 as of November 19 reflects that he is typically being selected in the first round.
This small gap between rank and ADP suggests he’s consistently valued among evaluators, even amid fluctuations in player evaluations at this stage of the draft cycle.
Users controlling the Arizona Cardinals have been the team that selected Lemon the most frequently over the past week, accounting for 2.5% of their picks across all seven rounds. Notably, 7.5% of the Arizona Cardinals’ first-round selections over that same period were used on Lemon, underscoring users’ strong preference for him as a potential immediate-impact wide receiver.
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Where Does Makai Lemon Rank Amongst Other NFL Draft Prospects?
Lemon is currently ranked No. 14 overall in my November 2026 NFL Draft Big Board. Among WR prospects, Lemon ranks 3rd at the position, trailing prospects like Carnell Tate, Jordyn Tyson. As a first-round caliber prospect, Lemon is among the top-tier players in this draft class.
Want to see how we rank all the draft prospects in the PFSN Mock Draft Simulator? Check out our NFL Draft Prospect Rankings page, which includes more than 750 prospects.
