These Two Defensive Ends Should Be 'Very Appealing' to Detroit Lions
Now that many of the pre-draft meetings have been completed and NFL team's have conducted their evaluations, there is a general sense the draft class at the defensive end position is quite deep.
For the Detroit Lions, there is an opportunity to land an impactful pass rusher in the early rounds.
Appearing on the Lone Wolves podcast, Lions draft analyst and reporter Jeff Risdon shared why defensive ends Keldric Faulk and T.J. Parker are two prospects general manager Brad Holmes would find appealing.
"There's depth in this class. Two stand out as guys the Lions will find very appealing, that's Keldric Faulk from Auburn and T.J. Parker from Clemson. Parker -- high end," said Risdon. "Go back nine months and look at the mock drafts. In almost every single one of them, he was the first defensive player coming off the board in every projection. He, like the rest of Clemson, did not have a great year. I thought he did a fantastic job at the combine and also in interviews after that of explaining why, and the reasons why he didn't achieve what he did in the past.
"They made sense from a football standpoint, but more to the point, they show an understanding of like the broader picture. This is a guy who's ready to come in and play right away. He is a crush the can guy, but he also has some speed."
Faulk, 21, may need a little more time to develop in Kelvin Sheppard's defense before he is able to become a consistent contributor.
"Faulk is much more of a projective type thing, because Auburn played him weirdly," Risdon explained. "But they also played him in a way where you can see the Lions will be like, 'Oh, he can play the 4-tech, he can play the three-tech if we want to, if we want to go to the five man front, which I'm lobbying for.' You would have three guys in between the tackle box and then Aidan Hutchinson and D.J. Wonnom or somebody else out here. Yeah, give me that.
"He's perfect for that," Risdon added. "So, I can see them liking him. And again, he's young. He's 20- years-old. His best football is in front of him. He is a very good athlete. I don't necessarily think he's a twitchy athlete. But god, everything that they wanted out of Marcus Davenport, Kendrick Faulk is, except he's healthy, too. And that like that's that's difficult to ignore."
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/lions/onsi as These Two Defensive Ends Should Be 'Very Appealing' to Detroit Lions .
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This story was originally published April 18, 2026 at 5:58 PM.