The Detroit Lions 2025 NFL Draft class is still very much a work in progress, but the team did get some contributions from a few rookies. It’s far too early to judge an entire draft class after one season,
but we can certainly congratulate and celebrate specific individuals who showed a lot of promise in their first NFL season.
Here are our nominations for 2025 Detroit Lions Rookie of the Year. Your vote at the bottom of the page will determine the winner, so don’t forget to use the poll!
Previous awards:
Detroit Lions Rookie of the Year
Al Karsten: Tate Ratledge
Despite the offensive line’s overall struggles, Ratledge stepped in as a first-year starter, worked through typical rookie growing pains, and finished the second half of the season looking like one of the best rookie offensive linemen in football. An imposing presence in the run game, he led the team with nearly 1,100 snaps while starting every game and paving the way for several explosive runs by Jahmyr Gibbs. He more than lived up to the value Brad Holmes found in him as a second-round pick.
Erik Schlitt: Tate Ratledge
Ratledge earned a starting job in training camp and then went on to take 99% of the team’s offensive snaps in 2025. According to PFF, Ratledge only gave up two sacks on the season, earned a 70.3 overall grade from PFF, which ranked him 20th amongst all NFL guards (who played at least half their team’s offensive snaps), while his 73.5 run blocking grade was among the top 10. Ratledge should be a fixture on the offensive line for several years to come.
Jeremy Reisman: Tate Ratledge
While there was no real competitor for Ratledge this year, he’s fully deserving of the award. When many rookies are hitting a wall come November or December, Ratledge was playing some of his best football. From Weeks 12-18, Ratledge posted a 73.1 PFF grade, good for 15th among all NFL guards over that span and just behind All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson (73.6). He will enter 2026 with expectations of being a good, if not great, starter.
Meko Scott: Tate Ratledge
The 2025 rookie class may not have wowed anyone like previous years, but the play from Tate Ratledge gave me a lot of hope for the future. We saw Ratledge start in all 17 games and truly have to learn on the fly as that offensive line went through a lot of change and poor play. However, in spite of that we saw, Ratledge displayed his grittiness by playing through injuries and his improvement throughout the season in the run game, where he received a 73.5 run blocking grade from PFF. There will need to be improvement in his pass protection, but I think we saw enough from the Lions second-round pick to believe he can be a quality piece to this offensive front for years to come.
John Whiticar: Tate Ratledge
I’m expecting a sweep for Ratledge, as there was nobody else in the conversation. I wouldn’t say that Tyleik Williams had a bad season, but I was hoping he would have a larger role by the end of the year. Elsewhere, your candidates are Isaac TeSlaa and his acrobatic-yet-limited catches or Miles Frazier and his 46 snaps. Ratledge not only gets the award by virtue of starting, but he was genuinely good. For a rookie campaign, it was a good starting point.
Ryan Mathews: Tate Ratledge
The Lions’ second-round pick gets the nod for his steadily improving play throughout the season. Ratledge finished the season t-15th among guards in PFF’s EFF metric (97.9)–a PFF signature stat measuring pressure allowed on a per-snap basis with weighting toward sacks allowed–and from Week 12 through the end of the season, he finished t-third (99.0) in that same statistic, allowing just six pressures and zero sacks over the final seven games of 2025.
Brandon Knapp: Tate Ratledge
The only rookie who was considered a starter for the entire season, Ratledge is the clear and obvious choice. He wasn’t perfect but he showed he was just what this team needed on the offensive line and has a bright future ahead of himself.
