With the Detroit Lions’ 2026 draft now nearly a full week in the rear-view mirror, it’s time for the Pride of Detroit staff to take inventory of what transpired. We’ve had time to read the scouting reports, listen to what Lions general manager Brad Holmes had to say about each pick, and do our own dive into the college film.
Detroit, MI
Detroit Lions NFL Draft roundtable: Favorite pick
So over the next week, our staff will be sharing their thoughts on the Lions’ draft class in a roundtable-like discussion. To kick the series off, we’re going to talk about our favorite pick from the Lions’ NFL Draft.
And as a fun exercise, I’m going to include a link to last year’s answers to see how wrong/right we were.
2025: Best Detroit Lions draft pick discussion
What was your favorite pick from the Lions’ 2026 NFL Draft?
Ryan Mathews: Blake Miller
Miller was easily my favorite pick of the draft. Holmes didn’t have to sacrifice any future capital to bolster an offensive line that desperately needed to be improved after last season’s noticeable step back. Instead, he let the board come to him on Day 1, and when it did, Holmes drafted a player who fits in terms of both football character and play style.
Brandon Knapp: Blake Miller
Despite the rumors of the Lions liking Kadyn Proctor, he thankfully was off the board. For me, Miller was my 1B to Francis Mauigoa as my top twoo options in the first round. The OT spot was the most important position that needed to be addressed and the team taking one at 17 was music to my ears. I wanted the experience and consistency Miller brought.
John Whiticar: Blake Miller
There was some thought (fear?) that the Lions might get cute and pass on tackle in the first round. Instead, not only did the Lions get a perfect culture and scheme fit, they also did so without trading up from pick 17. Miller will technically battle Larry Borom for the right tackle spot, but it would be a major surprise if he doesn’t win it outright. For a team that just parted ways with Taylor Decker, adding Miller to the roster is just about a perfect way to replace—and potentially improve upon—the veteran. It was an easy and obvious choice, and the Lions went for it.
Erik Schlitt: Blake Miller
I haven’t been shy about my desire to see Miller in Honolulu Blue, as I believe he was a perfect combination of skill set, character, and need for the Lions at pick No. 17 in the first round. I firmly believe that the Lions have found the ideal replacement for Taylor Decker; a starting tackle who can deliver reliable production for the next 10 years.
Jeremy Reisman: Miller/Keith Abney
I discussed this earlier in Sunday’s Question of the Day. But in short: Miller was the most logical pick, and I’m glad the Lions stayed relatively patient and took him without spending extra draft capital—even if they tried. But more impressively, they may have gotten their future starting nickel in Abney all the way in the fifth round. For a team with minimal draft capital, landing a potential starter that late in a “thin” draft class should be considered a huge triumph. If the Lions are going to stay competitive long-term, it’s not just imperative they hit on the early picks, but they’ll need to find late-round steals and that’s exactly what Abney is.
Energy Storage Safety Products International (ESSPI), based in Newlab Detroit at Michigan Central, has launched Med Hawk, a new division of the company focused on bringing its ground-based transportation monitoring system to the skies.
With this launch, ESSPI will provide drone operators with insight and analytics when aircraft are transporting medical supplies beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS).
“The drone industry has built the foundation for incredible unmanned aircraft, but now ESSPI is working to demonstrate how we can make those same drones work for us,” says Ron Butler, CEO of ESSPI. “Using Med Hawk’s real-time data and monitoring systems, we are able to help ensure that medical supplies are delivered quickly and safely, ultimately helping to save lives.”
Med Hawk has partnered with Brighton autonomous drone logistics company Blueflite to demonstrate its drone battery monitoring and data logging capabilities and is utilizing the Michigan Central AAIR to replicate deliveries in real-world deployment scenarios.
“Blueflite is excited to work with ESSPI in flight testing their innovative and unique cold storage solution for medical logistics,” says Andrew Zeimen, program manager at Blueflite. “We are looking forward to flying with a Michigan designed and manufactured product on our mission to continue making drone delivery accessible to those that need it, where and when they need it most.”
ESSPI technology is built on the understanding that batteries often exhibit measurable environmental changes before catastrophic failure, the company says. Designed through three years of collaborative development with the U.S Department of Transportation, ESSPI’s DNOC framework — Detection, Notification, Operation, and Communication — allows Med Hawk to provide real-time visibility, data logging, and alerts so drone operators can take action before issues escalate.
Advanced aerial mobility is expanding access to medical deliveries, improving emergency response capabilities, and driving efficiencies across logistics and supply chains. Michigan Central and the Michigan Department of Transportation created AAIR to help scale these technologies, providing 28 square miles of dense, urban environment for testing and scaling new drone technologies into market-ready solutions.
“The diversification of ESSPI’s market offering showcases the transition we’re seeing many companies make, identification and commercialization of products which will make aerial mobility a viable platform to scale their business, while providing solutions for communities that better serve their needs,” says Matt Whitaker, director of the mobility innovation platform at Michigan Central. “What we are seeing with ESSPI and Blueflite is exactly what the Michigan Central ecosystem was built for. To create the foundation for talent and inspiring collaboration between member companies, leading to the next generation of advanced mobility innovation being born in Detroit.”
The collaboration is said to reflect broader momentum across Michigan Central’s aerial mobility ecosystem, which has supported more than 1,200 drone flights and multiple BVLOS deployments focused on logistics, infrastructure inspection, public safety, and delivery applications.
For more information about ESSPI, visit esspi.com/.
For more information about blueflite, visit blueflite.com/.
For more information about Michigan Central AAIR, visit here.
Detroit, MI
Power outage forces flaring at Marathon’s Detroit refinery; portion of Schaefer Road closed
Southwest Detroit – A power outage at Marathon’s Detroit refinery has led to operating conditions that made flaring necessary, the company said Sunday.
Flares are safety devices that allow for the safe combustion of excess gases under certain operating conditions, according to Marathon.
Refinery personnel are conducting off-site air monitoring, the company said.
As a precaution, a section of Schaefer Road from I-75 to Dix Road is closed. Local law enforcement is managing the closure.
Marathon said the company’s top priorities are the safety of employees, responders and the community, as well as limiting any environmental impact.
Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield said her administration is monitoring the situation closely.
“EGLE (the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) and refinery personnel are conducting air quality monitoring both on-site and in the surrounding neighborhoods. At this time, monitoring has not detected gas readings of concern,” the statement said.
Local 4 reached out to EGLE and a spokesperson said the agency is sending all media inquiries to the city of Detroit.
Copyright 2026 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow has dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, ceding the field to former Wayne County and Detroit health director Abdul El-Sayed and U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens with just over four weeks to go until the Aug. 4 primary.
McMorrow told the Free Press on Sunday, July 5, she was suspending her campaign. She said she had hoped that voters would support a candidate who combined El-Sayed’ progressivism and Stevens’ policy background but that path has been largely closed off by considerable outside spending — tens of millions of it benefitting Stevens — in the race.
She did not endorse one of the other candidates in the race, at least not in the immediate aftermath of her decision.
In a three-minute video she posted at 1:40 p.m. Sunday on social media platform X, McMorrow confirmed her decision to suspend her campaign, saying she was doing so with a “deep sense of gratitude” to her supporters and campaign workers; her husband, Ray Wert; and their 5-year-old daughter, Noa, who McMorrow said reminded her recently, “‘It’s not about if you win, it’s about trying hard and having fun.’ She’s right.”
“People are crying out for change and we need to listen,” McMorrow said. “Whoever wins this primary on Aug. 4th will have my full support… Let’s elect Democrats up and down the ticket and show the rest of the country what it means to fight like Michigan.”
McMorrow, of Royal Oak, leaves the race after being the first big-name Democrat to run to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Gary Peters and having raised more than $8.6 million by the end of the last campaign finance reporting period at the end of March. The winner of the Democratic primary will face Republican Mike Rogers, a former U.S. representative, of White Lake, who lost a U.S. Senate race in Michigan two years ago to Democrat Elissa Slotkin bu 19,006 votes, or about three-tenths of 1 percentage point.
Her departure, however, comes after absentee ballots have already been mailed out to some voters and too late to remove her name from the primary ballot. Voters who have already submitted their absentee ballots can contact their local clerks, ask to spoil their ballots and request a new one until 5 p.m. Friday, July 24.
Throughout her campaign, McMorrow — who toppled a Republican state senator in 2018 and became an internet sensation after speech of hers bashing a Republican colleague who accused her and other Democrats of grooming and sexualizing children went viral — displayed a ready ebullience, meeting with voters at local breweries. But she never got the opportunity to show the fire she had in that speech on the Senate floor in 2022 and was likely hurt by revelations that she had deleted old posts on Twitter/X in which she criticized her adopted state, though others said the reaction to that was blown out of proportion.
While she challenged for or was in the lead in some polls earlier in the year, more recent surveys have showed her dropping back considerably as El-Sayed, running as the progressive standard-bearer, and Stevens, a more moderate candidate with support from the Democratic establishment and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, moved to the front in recent polling averages.
In late June, the Wall Street Journal cited sources saying that Peters, a close ally of Schumer’s but who had not publicly endorsed a Democratic candidate in the race to replace him, had told associates that McMorrow needed to consider leaving the race so Democrats could coalesce around Stevens to face El-Sayed, who has been criticized in the past for campaigning with an internet influencer, Hasan Piker, who critics say has made antisemitic remarks.
Then there was the outside spending, which has piled up enormously in recent weeks. Punchbowl News, a respected journalism site in Washington, wrote July 3 that a $30 million “avalanche” in ads benefitting Stevens had been booked by outside groups before McMorrow had begun to spend heavily on broadcast TV. At least one of those ads, as the Free Press reported Friday, stretched its facts in making attacks on El-Sayed.
While Stevens has called for election reform in Congress she has characterized the outside help she has received as in line with legal standards and not questioned its propriety.
But it was far from clear immediately whether McMorrow’s departure would be enough to bump El-Sayed, of Ann Arbor, out of the lead. Recent polling averages have shown McMorrow’s support in single digits and Stevens may need all of that to catch El-Sayed if those are correct.
Stevens’ level of support from staunchly pro-Israel groups, including the American-Israel Public Affairs Group (AIPAC), which also supports Republican candidates who have voted to maintain U.S. support for Israel, has also been controversial. Many Democrats have voiced skepticism of whether the U.S. should continue to give Israel the support it has given its prosecution of its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Without question, however, McMorrow’s leaving the race makes the choice a binary one for Democrats still on the fence a month before the election — which may help Stevens most since it’s presumed that El-Sayed’s supporters are already largely on board with a campaign that has been surging for months now. But predictions about El-Sayed’s levels of support topping out have been wrong before in this campaign.
El-Sayed released a statement praising McMorrow’s campaign and saying she “showed what it looks like to fight back against a politics that rigs the system against too many of us.” He then welcomed McMorrow’s supporters “to our movement to stand up against money in politics, to put money back in pockets and pass Medicare for All. We cannot allow the establishment to decide our nominee for us.”
“The same party insiders she had the courage to challenge have been bullying anyone who opposes their chosen candidate,” El-Sayed said. “After spending $30 million to drown Senator McMorrow and me out, they’re now spending even more to attack me. It’s everything we are standing up against.”
Stevens also spoke warmly about McMorrow’s effort in the campaign, though she made less of a direct pitch to McMorrow’s supporters.
“Anyone who raises their hand to serve the people of Michigan and puts forward thoughtful ideas for how they would lead earns my respect,” said Stevens, of Birmingham. “Mallory McMorrow has been an important voice, both in this race and in the state Senate, for policies that benefit Michigan’s children and families, and I look forward to working with her in the future to build a stronger Michigan for everyone.”
“As we enter the final month of the primary election, I’m excited to continue to make my case to Michiganders why I’m the strongest Democrat to defeat Mike Rogers this November, lower costs, protect manufacturing jobs, and stand up to Trump’s abuses of power,” she said.
Greg Manz, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, characterized McMorrow’s leaving the campaign as going from “a three-car pileup to a head-on collision.”
“Whoever survives the messy Democrat primary will be held accountable at the ballot box this November for turning their backs on Michigan’s working families — Mike Rogers will beat whoever emerges from their chaotic primary,” he said.
Hunter Lovell, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said “McMorrow’s exit is the latest example of the socialist takeover. While Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens tear each other apart, President Trump and Mike Rogers are delivering tax cuts and safer communities.”
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on X @tsspangler.
This story has been updated with additional information.
-
Colorado4 minutes agoShowers and thunderstorms forecast for Colorado’s high country as wildfires rage across the state
-
Connecticut7 minutes agoEversource crews work to restore power nearly 48 hours after Independence Day storm
-
Delaware12 minutes agoDelaware County commissioners criticize Marion County prosecutor
-
Florida19 minutes agoDeadly July 4th shooting arrest; South Florida man accused of Miami stabbing attack
-
Georgia22 minutes agoPoll shows Georgia Democrats ahead in senate, gubernatorial races
-
Hawaii27 minutes ago$5 deal for National Fried Chicken Day
-
Idaho34 minutes ago
An Idaho mother who said her toddler twins died after vaccinations has been charged with murder
-
Illinois37 minutes agoSevered arm in Illinois lake: Court records say body parts found in freezer, half-brother claimed self-defense
