The Lions Should Draft This Guy: Texas A&M’s Cashius Howell has what both the Lions and their fans want at the same time
The Lions want something from the edge rusher position, and the fans want something else. Howell brings both
We’re getting closer and closer to the 2026 NFL Draft for the Detroit Lions. With that in mind, we’re starting our new series called The Lions Should Draft This Guy. We’re going to profile a bunch of players we feel the Lions would love, and talk about their positives and negatives. Follow along!
The Lions should draft Texas A&M edge, Cashius Howell
How the fit works
If this offseason has made one thing clear, it’s that the Lions want one thing out of their edge rushers, and their fans want something else. The team wants to stop the run, and the fans want to get to the quarterback. Ideally, the Lions would like to find a guy who can fit both of those needs. That’s where Howell can fit in for the Lions and make everyone happy.
On the pass rush side, he put up 41 pressures and 12 sacks for the Aggies in 2025. Pro Football Focus gave him a 90.3 pass rush grade in 2025. That was the 13th highest grade in the country among edges who played a minimum of 290 pass rush snaps.
Then he can set the edge and stop the run. He’s graded out in the 70’s in the last two years as a run stopper. He has good change-of-direction skills and can fight off tacklers’ punches. There are some better edges in this department, but they may be don’t bring the pass rush help you’d hope for.
The Concerns
For starters, he doesn’t have bad athleticism. But he is the seventh most athletic edge rusher, and there are opportunities for the Lions to be better in that department with another guy.
He struggles with power. He’s got the speed moves and the finesse moves, but when you need him to bull rush, he might not have the frame to support that.
The run-stopping is good, but is it good enough? There’s concern that maybe he needs to bulk up his lower half more to get the strength to be a better run stopper. If he does that, that can really help the Lions feel better about drafting him. If he doesn’t, they’d have to hope he does just well enough.
Where can the Lions draft Howell?
Right now, his average draft position on our AtoZ Sports big board is 29th. So the Lions can get him at 17th, and they could theoretically get him in the 20’s if they traded down. He’s not likely to be a candidate to fall to the 50th pick.
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