Skyler Gill-Howard has come a long way since starting his college football journey at D-II Upper Iowa. Gill-Howard kept moving up the football food chain, transferring to Northern Illinois as a walk-on and then portaling to Texas Tech for his final collegiate season. Now the 6-foot, 280-pound defensive lineman gets his chance to prove he belongs at the highest level.

The Detroit Lions selected Gill-Howard in the sixth round of the 2026 NFL Draft. It’s a speculative draft pick that banks on the hard-nosed Gill-Howard continuing his pigskin ascent.

What the Lions are getting in Skyler Gill-Howard

There isn’t a tremendous body of work behind Gill-Howard. He was on the field for just 165 snaps in his one season at Texas Tech, and played under 900 total college snaps between his two seasons at Northern Illinois and his pit stop in Lubbock. 

I paid special attention to Gill-Howard’s matchup against Utah. The Utes featured two first-round offensive tackles in Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu, and Gill-Howard frequently squared off against each of those talented tackles. Texas Tech deployed Gill-Howard heads-up on them more often than not, especially early in the contest. 

Gill-Howard didn’t have a lot of success at rushing against the Utes tackles. Part of the issue was No. 0’s seeming lack of a coherent plan as a pass rusher. The burst off the snap is appealing, but there are a lot of instances of Gill-Howard hesitating after his first step to try and react to the movement of the offensive line. That works against the Kent States and Oregon States of the football world, but a disciplined, talented offensive line like Utah’s wasn’t threatened at all by it. 

This clip, his first heads-up snap of the game against Fano at right tackle, is pretty emblematic of his day as a 4i/5T rusher:

Gill-Howard’s appeal to the Lions was readily evident on a later rep where he showed his quickness for his size, as well as some football savvy. No. 0 reading the screen almost immediately, getting himself clear and then chasing down the play away from his alignment for a TFL–that’s the good stuff. 

That quickness and closing burst in space are present across Gill-Howard’s tape. He doesn’t have the best body control to adjust to shiftier targets, but Gill-Howard is unusually fast to top speed for a 280-ish pound lineman. His throttle opens quickly.

The dynamic quickness and reactional athleticism really stand out across Gill-Howard’s game film. He wins with quickness, smart angles and sheer tenacity. The Red Raiders defense used him all over the line. Take this set against Oregon State, a 3rd-and-9 where he’s effectively the only down lineman:

Skyler Gill-Howard aligned vs Oregon State

It would have been fun to watch that rep play out, but the right tackle was guilty of a false start–perhaps anxious about how Gill-Howard was going to attack from the exotic set. That makes sense after how quickly Gill-Howard blew up this prior play.

Gill-Howard celebrates his great play here enthusiastically. That’s also what he brings in droves: positive energy. It’s true when one of his defensive mates makes the play and not No. 0, too. His relentless hustle rubs off on his teammates; there is a tangible decline in overall vitality from the defense when Gill-Howard wasn’t on the field, even in a talent-laden defense that saw five of his Red Raiders mates drafted with him in 2026.

Drawbacks

Being a hair under 6-foot-1 and weighing in at 280 pounds at the Combine, Gill-Howard is an odd size. Much like Lions 2025 draftee Mekhi Wingo, he’s too small to be a full-time interior presence, but not long enough or athletic enough to make a living as more than a sub-package DE. Gill-Howard is more sudden and uses his hands better than Wingo, at least based on the college tape from both players.

It might seem oxymoronic, but Gill-Howard often plays too tall for a short guy. It looks as if he’s up on his toes in an effort to locate the ball, but it saps his strength and anchor. This happened repeatedly across all his game film, most notably when he’s aligned heads-up on a tackle. When he starts more in a gap, playing 4i or even a shaded 3T, Gill-Howard is much better at keeping his center of gravity lower and using his quickness and strong hands to disrupt without needing to seek his target.

There’s also the ankle injury that ended his final season at Texas Tech. It also wiped out his athletic testing in the pre-draft process. It’s not expected to be an impactful injury, but it did cost Gill-Howard some major reps against higher-level competition that he sorely needed. Despite five years in college football, Gill-Howard remains pretty inexperienced.

Overall

Skyler Gill-Howard gives the Lions options as a positionally versatile, quickness-based defensive lineman with an abundance of Grit. His ability to win reps quickly with well-honed hand usage and above-average lateral quickness and range offers the potential to see the field as a rookie in pass-rush situations. He’ll never be a stout presence, but Gill-Howard has the developmental ability to be a better run defender by adding some lower-body bulk and consistently keeping his pad level lower. He figures to compete in a DL mix with Levi Onwuzurike, Mekhi Wingo, Ahmed Hassanein, Tyler Lacy, seventh-rounder Tyre West and others for an active role on the 53-man roster as a rookie defensive lineman.