Why the Detroit Lions should draft Olaivavega Ioane

Who is Olaivavega Ioane?

Olaivavega Ioane is a highly decorated, dominant guard prospect in this year’s draft class. He played his college ball at Penn State (4th year junior) and just turned 22 years old this month. He brings a developed, dense, muscular build with excellent length and wingspan for the position. His hands are also massive. He is 6-foot-4 and 330 pound and is a good, functional athlete. He also has s-tier body control and recovery ability to go along with advanced technical proficiency.

If you are unfamiliar with my evaluation process let me give you the quick 411. I use a weighted numeric scoring system that incorporates four major buckets to generate a score on a 0-100 scale: film/traits, analytics profile, athleticism, and intangibles. Each of those buckets has a set of position/archetype specific sub criteria. Using all-22 film, my process starts with the evaluation of every single snap a player played in his college career.

For this class, I have scored nearly 250 prospects and Ioane scores as a top-10 player on my board and my #2 OL overall. That is despite receiving a small ding in my system for positional value. Positional value aside, I believe Ioane is not only the safest OL in this class, I believe he also has the highest ceiling.

Accolades:

• Polynesian Player of the Year Finalist (2025)
• All-American First Team (2025)
• All-Big Ten First Team (2025)
• All-Big Ten Second Team (2024)
• All-Big Ten Honorable mention (2023)
• Academic All-Big Ten (2023, 2024, 2025)

Strengths

• Monster in the run game. Ioane is highly productive in both man/gap and zone scheme runs and has the mentality of a road-grader. Better put, he is an absolute mauler. In man/gap, he is explosive out of his stance and latches on to his target with excellent grip strength. He has heavy hands and the raw upper body power to jolt, torque, and turn defenders out of their gaps or run them out of the play outright. He is capable of generating big-time movement, especially on combo blocks. On plays working directly to the second level, he IDs and locates his target quickly, gets to his landmark, and latches on. He comes in under control and really shows off that elite body control in his ability to adjust and connect to moving targets. Linebackers have a really tough time slipping him. With zone-specific duties he has the foot speed to cross face, reach, connect, and cut-off his target. There are reps of him reaching targets a whole gap and a half over. He might be better suited for a gap-first rushing attack, but he is no slouch as a zone blocker –  he’ll fit into any scheme.
• Disciplined leverage player. Ioane understands all three facets of leverage (hands, hips, pads) and is meticulous in the way he sets up blocks. His initial strike is powerful and accurate. From there he works to win the hand-fight battle and sustain his block. He enters his blocks with good pad level and doesn’t often get caught high in an upright stance. Lastly, he runs his feet in order to roll his hips forward and through his target, this is where his power and displacement ability comes from.
• Good overall mover. Is he the best athlete in the class? No. But Ioane is much more than a plodding guard. He’s explosive off the ball and very fluid laterally. He is quick pulling into space and operates smoothly on power and counter runs. He is also good in the screen game. I would classify him as a path-clearer. He won’t win any races, but Vega won’t lose blocks because he can’t move.
• Stout in protection. Ioane is at his best in protection when he can match power for power. He plays with good leverage and a firm punch to absorb and negate a heavy bull rush. Once he’s latched, it’s very difficult for rushers to escape or work another move. He can create a very firm interior pocket. He also is a high level processor and sorts through stunts and twists quickly. I charted everyone of his pass-pro reps in college—he had zero sacks allowed, allowed a pressure rate under 3.0% and only allowed his QB to get hit one time. That resume on nearly 800 pass-pro snaps. This an alien level resume.
• The toughness and grit factor is off the charts. Ioane is a tone setter. He is a two-year starter who rarely came off the field. Ioane is the type of guy who becomes an offensive line’s identity. He has an affinity for finishing or driving his man downfield well through the whistle, and will put his man two feet into the ground. He has a legit nasty streak.

Weakness

• Speed rushers can get the best of him from time to time. Ioane doesn’t have the lateral twitch to consistently redirect or match the speed of the s-tier explosive 3-techniques. Ioane is a good mover, but he’s not the most sudden player. This is the weakest aspect of his game. To reiterate, he has enough quickness to mirror and react to bigger, slower interior rushers but at times he’ll struggle to match pure speed or twisting edge players. For me this is such a small concern though as the available reps of him actually losing is so small.
• Probably doesn’t come with positional versatility. If you are drafting Ioane, you are doing so with the idea that he is probably your LG. He doesn’t have tackle flexibility.

*You can find my formal writeups on Olaivavega Ioane and all the potential Lions targets in my 2026 NFL Prospect Guide.

What is his fit in Detroit:

First and foremost, this move would be to completely restore the identity of this football team.

There is a run game revolution happening in the NFL right now and there has never been a better time in the modern era to invest a high pick into an elite guard prospect.

Ioane would slide right in and be your left guard starter for the next 10 years (old cliche but I like it). Him next to Penei Sewell—if they follow through on a Sewell move to LT—would give the Lions the best left side in the NFL. The guard pair of Ioane and Tate Ratledge would also give the Lions the best young up and coming guard tandem in the league. It would also complete this IOL rebuild in the post Frank Ragnow world we are living in and the Lions’ interior trio with aforementioned guards and newly acquired Center Cade Mays would be terrifying for the league. Again, it would get the Lions back to their identity – imposing their will and curb stomping teams in the run game. Jahmyr Gibbs averaged just 3.0 yards per carry over the final 6 weeks of 2025. That cannot happen again.