Story by
Lions Sixth-Rounder Gill-Howard: ‘I Belong in This League’
- Story by
- Lions Sixth-Rounder Gill-Howard: ‘I Belong in This League’
"The coaches trust me. I knew I could play in this league, and I belong in this league." That is Detroit Lions rookie defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard, a sixth-round pick, telling Matt Finkel of CBS News Detroit how his first NFL season has gone. He has eight tackles and one sack in five games .
"It's been awesome, you know, just being out there with the guys, being able to make an immediate impact has been awesome," Gill-Howard said.
Advertisement
Detroit took him 205th overall in the 2026 NFL Draft out of Texas Tech. Very few sixth-round picks are in the rotation by October. Fewer still got there the way he did.
Skyler Gill-Howard had a long journey to the NFL
Gill-Howard came out of Greenfield High School in Wisconsin with one offer, and it was not a scholarship. He told CBS News Detroit:
"[It's been] a super long journey. My only offer out of high school was D2. I walked on to Upper Iowa University. I didn't even visit, but when I got up there, I was like, this is going to be rough. I was working my tail off, but I didn't get the opportunity. That semester was rough because you're in the middle of nowhere. The closest Walmart was an hour and 45 minutes away. Just straight isolation, so it was just me and the weight room."
No offers came in the first wave of the 2022 transfer portal. The one that did come had a condition attached. "That second wave in the portal is when NIU offered me a walk-on, but the catch was I had to play D-line," he said.
He took it. Gill-Howard arrived at Northern Illinois in 2022 as a scout-team linebacker, added more than 50 pounds in four months to make the move inside, and left three seasons later as a team captain with five sacks in 2024. Texas Tech took him out of the portal in 2025, and an ankle injury that required surgery ended his senior season after six games.
Advertisement
Gill-Howard was stunned by the phone call from GM Brad Holmes
On the third day of the 2026 NFL Draft, Gill-Howard got a 313 number on his phone. It was Lions general manager Brad Holmes.
"It was crazy because I knew I was going to fall just because of my injury. So, I'm just like, whenever I get my name called, I'm going to make the most of it. When they first called, I saw the 313, I'm like, 'I don't know anybody from Michigan,' but I answered, and 'Hey, this is Brad Holmes,' and I'm like, 'Oh my God.' When you hear that, it was super exciting because it fits the type of team that I want to be a part of. My whole career has been grit, been getting it out of the mud, been working for what you think you deserve."
Where Skyler Gill-Howard fits on the Lions defensive line
Detroit opens with Aidan Hutchinson and DJ Wonnum on the edges and Alim McNeill and Tyleik Williams inside. Gill-Howard sits directly behind McNeill at left defensive tackle, which is the snap-sharing job a rookie sixth-rounder is supposed to grow into rather than win outright.
That rotational role is where the eight tackles and the sack came from, and the Lions have 12 games left for him to add to the number. For a player whose only offer out of high school was Division II, the line about belonging is not a boast. It is a scoreboard.
