Each NFL Combine comes with celebration. Players hit their goals and celebrate their success, and others’. Prospects put their best foot forward on the cusp of playing on Sundays. There are plenty of great stories worth sharing, and most do. The NFL Network does a great job highlighting them. Running back Mike Washington Jr. was in literal tears after his fast 40, and the Styles’ family got their props for raising great athletes and men. It makes the mocking of USC WR Makai Lemon’s combine interviews all the more disappointing. He’s an unfair target of the Internet who did nothing wrong to begin with.
For those less terminally online than us. Lemon’s podium interview with the media went viral for how some perceived his answers.
And I chose a “nice” one. The Internet had a field day with Lemon. Making fun of his mannerisms and the way he answered. It would be one thing if the story had confined itself to Twitter’s airwaves as the daily dumb story of an endless 24-hour news cycle. But the story created rumors that Lemon was “bombing” his interviews with teams. Despite scant evidence or details over what he did wrong, the narrative was off and running.
No one knows how Lemon performed in the interviews, including his formal with the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’re likely to vary. He could have a “bad” interview with one team and a great one 10 minutes later with the next. Rarely is it ever so black-and-white that a player is bad in every interview across the board.
Not to mention that any scouts leaking the information could be doing so for insidious reasons. Knock the kid so it goes public in an attempt to hurt his draft stock. A tale as old as time. This was something former Steelers GM Kevin Colbert spoke out about over a decade ago.
“I think it’s really bad for our profession when people use whatever means they use to get information out to try to influence the draft, and they talk about a kid’s test score, a kid’s injury, a kid’s character,” Colbert said in April of 2025, as written by our own Scott Brown. “I think that’s awful. It’s disrespectful to our profession, it’s disrespectful to the game, it’s disrespectful to the kid.”
Last year, Deion Sanders made it clear the NFL hadn’t changed.
“You have guys who are slated and slotted to go at this number of pick,” he said during one interview. “Randomly, something comes out that they flunked a drug test. Or they have this type of injury. Or they were seen with this. And wildly, their draft grade drops.”
Every report has an angle. Scouts don’t give the information without an agenda or purpose.
Take Lemon’s body language out of it. Read a transcript of the answers he gave. Nothing about that is bad. If anything, it was a solid interview full of thoughtful and nuanced answers. In fact, in the clip that went most viral, Lemon’s answer was fantastic.
“I’d probably say Amon Ra-St. Brown,” Lemon said when asked the type of receiver he models his game after.” The type of grit he plays with. The way he can have a positive impact on the team without the ball in his hands.”
An answer that focused on helping the team beyond just catching passes and scoring touchdowns. And he gets crushed for giving it just because of the way he looked at the reporters. Completely unfair.
Some other answers Lemon gave during his supposedly “bad” interview.
On his parents.
“That’s my support system. Things gonna get tough, so falling back on them. The reason I’m here today is a big part because of them. So I owe it all to them. I’m super grateful to have them in my back pocket.”
His biggest college challenge.
“I’d probably say just not seeing the field when I thought I was gonna see the field, not get on the opportunities presented to myself. It just taught me to be patient. Stay down and just keep working hard. Then, when they do come up, take full advantage and don’t take any opportunity for granted.”
On where he has improved.
“Probably my speed and my physicalness. And then just an approach to the game with a more professional mindset.”
Lemon was kind, responsive, and detailed to the 20-or-so questions he received throughout the session. Nothing raised a red flag. Check out the 5-minute interview Lemon held with Pro Football Talk’s Chris Simms and Mike Florio. Same thing; a perfectly fine interview.
Is it possible that Lemon was worse behind the scenes with teams? Maybe. The scope of questions is often different than what the media asks. But I can promise that, had Lemon’s podium interview not gone viral, there’s no “leak” about how Lemon presented himself to the media. It’s merely a chance to pile on and drive the narrative home. He’s an easy target for cheap clicks.
Prospects aren’t immune to criticism. Our scouting reports outline the good and bad of every single prospect. This is the NFL. Criticism is part of the job. But it’s crucial to be fair to the players. To not blindly follow a storyline and target the low-hanging fruit. To honestly evaluate what is being discussed here, and see if there’s truly evidence of it.
With Lemon, narrative and reality don’t meet. He’s being panned as some weird butt of the joke who can’t speak. Listening to his answers, he seems intelligent and considerate. If he’s half as good with teams as he was to the media, Lemon’s words should be viewed as a plus. Not a minus. The fact that it’s being construed the other way is a shame.
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