With their final pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions added North Carolina wide receiver Antoine Green in the seventh round with the No. 219 overall pick.
Green is a big-bodied receiver at 6-foot-2, 199 pounds with explosive traits. He ran the 40 in 4.47 seconds at the NFL Scouting Combine and also had a 33.5-inch vertical and a 10-foot-3 broad jump.
Green was a third-team All-ACC selection this past season after catching 43 passes for 798 yards (18.6 average) and seven touchdowns in nine games played after dealing with an early-season collarbone injury. He caught 31 passes for 612 yards and five touchdowns as a junior.
"Joining an established offense with Jared Goff and the rest of the guys is definitely exciting for me," Green said via Zoom after the selection. "Because I feel like I can contribute to that and show what I can do. I'm excited to join an offense like that and get rolling."
He's an outside vertical specialist who averaged 19.0 yards per reception over his five-year career for the Tar Heels. He's great at tracking the football down the field and coming up with 50-50 balls.
The Lions will be without their biggest vertical threat, second-year wide receiver Jameson Williams, for the first six games of the 2023 season, so there's an opportunity for Green to show what he can do in camp and potentially carve out an early role in Detroit's offense.
"I think my strengths as a player is I can stretch the field," Green said. "I can read a defense pretty well ... do whatever I need to do to get open. I've got a big body, tall, I have great hands and playmaking ability."
