A few weeks ago, we detailed two potential trade up offers the Detroit Lions may have had in place in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft
. The first, reported by Nate Atkins of The Athletic, was a trade up attempt with the Los Angeles Rams—from 17 to 13—that LA rejected as too “soft.”The second scenario was admittedly more speculation on our part. Baltimore Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta told The Athletic that a team he purposely did not name “had something on the table, but inexplicably
told us they’d changed their mind.”
The clues he left about this mystery team were that it was a trade down from 14 to somewhere in the teens, and he mentioned that the deal would’ve netted them a fourth-round pick in each of the next two drafts. Because the Lions didn’t have a third-round pick to trade and they picked in the teens, it felt like the Lions were a good bet to be this unnamed team.
On Monday night, the Ravens dropped their behind-the-scenes video of the 2026 NFL Draft, and it confirms the Lions were this mystery team. Here’s the clip:
Let’s set the stage for this clip. It begins at pick No. 9, when the Cleveland Browns picked Spencer Fano. Then the Dallas Cowboys traded up a spot to take safety Caleb Downs at 11. That’s when the Ravens start talking about their offer.
“We have an offer,” Ravens VP of Football Administration Nick Matteo announces to the war room. “We have a trade offer.”
Here’s how they detail the offer:
Lions get:
- Pick 14
Ravens get:
- Pick 17
- Pick 118 (fourth-round pick)
- 2027 third-round pick
So this deal was actually more lucrative for the Ravens than DeCosta recalled, as it involves next year’s third-round pick, not fourth.
As the video progresses and players come off the board, we see Baltimore check in with Detroit while the Ravens are on the clock at 14. The Lions say they’re no longer interested, and the Ravens opt to quickly take Penn State guard Vega Ioane, instead.
Why the Lions backed out remains a tad unclear. If you believe Lions general manager Brad Holmes—who openly admitted they had talks about trading up—it’s because they felt confident after the Los Angeles Rams took Ty Simpson (13th overall and right before the Ravens pick) that Blake Miller would fall to them.
“Probably about when we got to—right after LA took the quarterback—I felt pretty good that we might be able to just get Blake,” Holmes said Thursday night.
That timeline certainly fits what happened in the video. We see the deal on the table at Pick 12. Then the draft board goes as follows:
- Pick 12, Miami Dolphins, OL Kadyn Proctor
- Pick 13, Los Angeles Rams, QB Ty Simpson
Then the trade is off the board.
Others have speculated that Kadyn Proctor was Detroit’s guy, and as soon as he was off the board the Lions were out. Proctor was a name heavily linked to the Lions before the draft, so this makes some sense. But since those rumors dropped before the draft, other Lions reporters have suggested Detroit was never interested in the Alabama lineman.
Regardless of the truth, this is just another example of a trade that fell through that would have heavily impacted the Lions’ draft class. Detroit also had a second-round trade offer with the New York Giants—including three Day 3 picks—that also fell through, as revealed by the Giants’ war-room video.
This just goes to show you that each NFL Draft could have played out in a million different ways had these little inflection points gone in a different direction.
