Detroit Lions rookie defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard made the most of his NFL debut, posting the highest PFF defensive grade for a rookie DT in Week 1 against the New Orleans Saints.
With a grade of 71.6, Gill-Howard recorded the second-highest Week 1 grade by a rookie in the last three seasons, per Pride of Detroit's Al Karsten.
Gill-Howard was projected to be a practice squad candidate - it's not everyday a Day 3 selection actually makes the 53-man roster, or even plays well enough in preseason and training camp to turn heads. Gill-Howard, though, got more and more disruptive throughout the offseason, and forced his way onto the roster as a key cog in defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard's defense.
Gill-Howard's ascension keeps making Holmes look like a draft genius
General manager Brad Holmes has to be relieved that, as of Week 1 at least, his work in the 2026 draft appears to have been good enough to wipe the minds of fans that are focused on how bad his 2024 work was: the only player that's really still contributing from that class is Sione Vaki, and that should speak to the depth provided from that year.
The Lions really needed to find additional bruisers up front after losing D.J. Reader and Roy Lopez in free agency, while also keep costs down. The two-fold solution to those losses, it appears, is having Gill-Howard be an absolute menace in blitz packages and to sit back and absorb another leap from Tyleik Williams.
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"Obviously I have designated patches where I’m going in, so I wasn’t expecting to play that much, but they kind of changed around their gameplan and Shep was confident in me going in there and being able to stop the run if I needed to...It was great to see the trust he has in me," said Gill-Howard after the Lions' win in Week 1, according to 97.1's Will Burchfield.
Gill-Howard should expect to play a ton moving forward after this performance. He'll be getting quite the test of his skill against Buffalo, who have one of the better lines around quarterback Josh Allen. And, Allen himself is quite the trickster in the pocket. Getting to him and actually completing a sack is no easy feat.
The rookie also told Burchfield, "I’m excited to see how it goes. I'm excited to play Josh Allen, phenomenal quarterback in this league. That’s a guy you want to go against."
Sounds like "Sun Bleach" is more than up for that challenge.
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