ALLEN PARK, Mich. — After taking Aidan Hutchinson with the No. 2 pick Thursday night, the Detroit Lions grabbed a second defensive lineman in the second round of the 2022 NFL draft, selecting Kentucky's Joshua Paschal with the No. 46 pick.
A three-year starter for the Wildcats, the 6-foot-3, 268-pounder played a variety alignments along the team's defensive front. As a fifth-year senior in 2021, he tallied 52 tackles, including 15 for a loss, to go with five sacks and a forced fumble.
At the scouting combine in March, Paschal tested exceptionally well, posting elite explosion numbers via his vertical and broad jumps as well as his 10-yard and 20-yard splits on the 40-yard dash.
"He's like a block of granite at the point of attack with low pads and a heavy anchor," NFL.com analyst Lance Zierlein wrote. "He has the twitch to see-and-shed against single blocks and the range to make a tackle a gap away. His face-up rush style lacks elusiveness and will see limited success off the edge, but his snap quickness fits perfectly as an interior rusher in sub-packages. Paschal might never be a star, but he's a good future starter with winning character that coaches and fans will grow to love."
Additionally, ahead of Kentucky's 2018 fall camp, Paschal was diagnosed with melanoma, a form of skin cancer, after having a painful lesion on his foot evaluated. It was addressed with two surgeries to remove the growth, followed by a year of immunotherapy treatments and medication.
With the selection, he joins a suddenly deep pass-rushing group in Detroit, headed by Hutchinson, brothers Romeo and Julian Okwara, and the team's sack and quarterback pressure leader from a year ago, Charles Harris.
Lions general manager Brad Holmes has shown a willingness to address a position multiple times with early draft picks each of his first two seasons at the helm. Last year, he selected defensive tackles with the team's second- and third-round choices, taking Washington's Levi Onwuzurike and North Carolina State's Alim McNeill.
