The NFL Draft is where players have their dreams come true, and it could happen in some of the craziest ways. That’s what happened with Makai Lemon in the first round, when a moment was caught on camera where Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Omar Khan called him to let him know the team was drafting him.
“Makai, hey, it’s Omar with the Steelers. How are ya,” Khan said.
It seems as if just moments later, a lot of things changed for not only the Steelers, but Lemon as well.
“Why is Philly calling me?” Lemon said while he was still on the phone.
Here is the moment Makai Lemon thought he was getting drafted by #Steelers and realizing in real time that the #Eagles traded up, via @gmfb this morning.
He asked Omar Khan “Why is Philly calling [me]?” pic.twitter.com/AbXDJONYye
— Ross McCorkle (@Ross_McCorkle) April 24, 2026
That’s when Lemon’s agent came up to him, letting him know that the Philadelphia Eagles were trading up to the No. 20 pick to select him.
“This is Philly. They just traded for you. Philly’s taking you right now,” Lemon’s agent said.
Either way, it looks like Lemon was going to a team where he could make an immediate impact on offense, but the Steelers were probably blindsided by the fact that they couldn’t get the player that they wanted. They sent the No. 23, No. 114 and No. 137 picks to the Dallas Cowboys to move up to No. 20.
“We just felt like this was a player that we wanted to go up and get, just based on where our board was at that time, where we were picking,” general manager Howie Roseman said. “It just felt like it made a lot of sense based on our board. When you have a player that you like that’s ranked higher on your board than where you’re picking, you think at every pick that he’s going to be selected. That’s just the way the draft is. You think everyone is thinking the way that you are. We didn’t want to sit on our hands. We wanted to go get him.”
The post The full Steelers phone call with Makai Lemon before Eagles traded up in NFL Draft appeared first on ClutchPoints.
