NFL Stock Exchange: An NFL Draft Podcast - 181. 2024 NFL Draft Summer Scouting: Wide Receivers

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

Hosts Trevor Sikkema and Connor Rogers kick off their Summer Scouting Series with the wide receiver position. The two talk about the names to know for the potential 2024 class, where they stand heading into the 2023 college football season, and give you their Top 10 (!) pre-season rankings for the position.

This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place, every game, every Sunday. And you can even watch up to four different games at once with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical. And also, YouTube TV is great. I got it this year.

It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com slash BS, device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to the NFL Stock Exchange podcast. In this episode, after a slight delay, we are giving you the beast that is the wide receiver summer scouting episode. We're so excited about this one. We watched more prospects individually for this episode than we ever have

for any position in our summer scouting career. So you know what that means. We got a lot of takes that we're getting off. We're not just giving you our top fives heading into the season for the 2024 NFL draft. We are giving you our top 10, which means you know that we're going to talk about a lot more than just those 10 wide receivers. We're going to have a good conversation about a lot of these guys, tell you where they're currently at, what their potential can be, the film grade, what we saw, some of the trait breakdowns and let you know what we think of these guys heading into the 2023 college football season and where they could be when the

2024 NFL draft comes around. I'm Trevor Sycamore with me as always is Connor Rogers. Let's ring the bell. Welcome to the opening bell of the NFL Stock Exchange Podcast. I'm Trevor Sycamore. That is Connor Rogers joining you guys for a very special episode. And that calls for a very special hello and welcome to the Fantasy Devy community, as this is one of our favorite episodes we get to do. The wide receiver episode, baby. It is finally here.

This is the most watched, most talked about, most controversial episode that we do every single summer, ranking the upcoming wide receivers for the upcoming draft class. Connor, how are you, my friend, on this big day? I'm good. This is a massive episode. Like right off the top, this is the most tape watching I've ever done for a summer scouting. Same. By far.

I mean, and that's why if you're listening and wondering why it's, I don't know, three days late, well, the wait was hopefully worth it because we really we pumped up our numbers for this one. Coconut Sunday, if you're listening on Sunday, the type of the century for those that don't know. And I'm sure most of the addicts do. Trevor was responding to people like, where the hell's the show that you promised us on Thursday? And thank God you were um you were responding to me like oh we we need you know a couple different people we need a couple days coming out sunday yada yada and then you sent one with an exclamation point said coking out on sunday that player will definitely be talked about and it was clear you walked away for a while like it wasn't like you let that ride

for a couple hours and when you came back it was probably like walking into the place being on fire so obviously i meant to say and i'll send a tweet i'm gonna send a tweet to ryan so if you're watching on youtube you can see it and see it but uh yeah how about the quote card i'm coking out on sunday i meant to say the? Coking out on Sunday. I meant to say the episode's coming out on Sunday. And dude, that's exactly what happened. I wasn't even thinking about it. I just typed it, sent the tweet, and I put my phone down.

I think, listen, I watched a comedy special for an hour and a half after that. It was a while. I checked my phone, and I've got the 20-plus notifications. I was like, why do I have this? have this right roasted for a ranking or something and uh then i saw your reaction and everyone else's to me scared the scared what is it a gerbil or a hamster yeah it's one of my faves i was like wow this could be some show so not only is it a great topic but i'm i'm coked out right now um coca-cola of course for-Cola, of course, for everybody who's listening. Coca-Cola, yes.

Yeah, for the FBI who's listening to this show. No, but I'm super excited for this episode. You're totally right. We looked at the wide receiver summer scouting that we did last year, and we quoted Wolf of Wall Street once again and said, those are rookie numbers. You got to get those numbers up. So we decided to watch more than 20 players each,

and we're bringing a lot of great wide receiver thoughts to the table. We're bringing a lot of great prospects in a super deep class, dude. I know that we wanted to watch more guys just in general, but as I was getting to wide receiver 12, 13, 14, there were a handful of players who I hadn't even got to yet who were notable names in college football who was like, man, I still have to get to these just to make the ranking you know pure just to make it what I want it to be so normally we go through our top fives today on the show

we're going to give you our top tens Connor and I have not talked about this once we have not talked about our wide receiver rankings at all whatsoever so it's given the fact that we're expanding it from five to ten that just opens up the possibility for there to be a lot of guys on connor's list that aren't on mine and vice versa so of course we're talking about 10 and 10 but you guys know the drill we'll talk about a lot of different wide receivers as well so um yeah that's kind of the format of what we're going with. I went back to last year's and it's one of those things where it just goes to show you the volatility of, of summer scouting and every position cause it's always like this, but you know,

to our credit, we had Jackson Smith and jig, but Jordan Addison, Quentin Johnston on the show. And then, you know, you also have some ones that don't go how you hope in a Keishon Boutte or A.T. Perry and things like that. So it's it's a great exercise because you'll have your hits and then, you know, it's like life. Things happen. The season doesn't go as you expect. And I think with this group, though, what was fascinating about watching them was the some of the guys at the top. You were like. Yeah, like I'll be floored if this guy is not sitting in the top five wide receivers what is it 10 months from now oh sure

right right then like you said the depth of this class kind of started to show its teeth a lot where I just I just kept going like I'd get I'd through the top guys, and I was like, okay, I know there's some secondary guys. And then there's these transfers that could have big years. I found one sleeper. Ultimately, I got to watch 19. Okay. And I actually ranked them. Usually, I just rank five,

and then I just let the rest float for the most part. But this time, I was like, I need to rank these because there is so much going on here you know shapes sizes skill sets usage uh one player that's a tight end that you and i have unified on and saying we're evaluating as a wide receiver so this will be really this will be really fun and really in depth yeah so obviously it's going to be a big episode we want to get right to it but um just to kind of echo or i should say piggyback off of what you were saying i got 21 guys watched um i'm ranking i'm i'm i'm a little bit more structured when it comes to summer scouting uh but i'm ranking all of these

guys because i'm doing the pffs like initial right word for the mock draft machine and everything so i've got 21 guys that i watch and there's there's there's at least four others i want to get to 25 at a minimum that i can put into the mock draft machine when the season rolls around so when you guys use the mock draft machine uh you can go make sure that you draft those players so that's right yeah i yeah i got to 21 guys that's that's more than I've ever written up during a summer scouting for any position, any singular position. So I'm excited to talk about it, man. I got a lot of, I got a lot of takes, a lot of film that we watched. And so with that, I'll let you kick it off with, with number 10, who are you starting off this episode with for

your number 10 ranked wide receiver? So number 10 for me is johnny wilson from florida state and this is one of those unique ones you know i kind of led this off talking about shapes and sizes and skill sets and you're just not going to get to watch a lot of johnny wilson's in your lifetime right a number one wide receiver on a team that is i have met six feet six inches and an eighth inch tall so he's over six foot six and i haven't listed two i haven't met 237. um that is a that's a monster of a human i mean just a that's that's a tight end but he's he's a wide receiver and he's not who i'm talking about at the beginning of the show with johnny wilson he finished 2022, 43 catches, 897 yards, five touchdowns. I mean, obviously, explosive play kind of player.

I wrote down for pros, unique size, both height and mass. For the position, he's not one of these tall, lanky guys. He carries a ton of weight. 34 of his 43 receptions went for a first down, which tells you everything you need to know about the player. I mean, these are targets that are being thrown down the field or at least the intermediate of the field in what we think is going to be a really good offense this year. Can shield defenders on underneath targets, catch radius to snag off target throws.

You love the ability to just kind of extend the arms at every single angle to make catches. He runs right through tacklers that come in high. There's the upper body strength. You know, a lot of guys that play football obviously have incredible lower body strength, the way they train their legs and honestly just genetics. This guy is, he's got an NFL upper body because he carries so much mass that when guys try to even come near his shoulders or even his upper waist, like his abdomen area, they just bounce right off of him.

Yeah. Back shoulder and fade throws are layups to him. I mean, when you look at it, it's just he's so much bigger that if the ball is on time, it's so hard for a defensive back to gain leverage. I put nearly unguardable on comeback throws when it's put where only he can catch it. If the ball's on time on a comeback route and it's in a radius that only he possesses, you cannot guard him. You just have to hope for the best.

Now, at the next level, corners will be more physical and better arm length and all those things. But right now in the ACC, it's just everybody's battling uphill on that route against him. One thing I really liked low key, he will erase defensive backs as a blocker. And I'm not talking about just like kind of trotting out there and putting his hands out there. There's a couple of reps out there of him just literally throwing people into the ground with authority.

And that comes with that tight end build, which leads to my last thing. You can use him in alignments in the run game like a tight end. You could play him in tight sets. You could even kind of have him motion towards the line of scrimmage you could use him all over near the the offensive lineman and really it's kind of what the Packers did so long with Alan Lazard um that's what Florida State could do with him at times and it's I that's my kind of player because that's real NFL football kinds of things and he has the size to do that when you look at the cons it. And he has the size to do that. When you look at the cons, body catching can lead to drops.

There's a couple of times where the ball catches him a little bit. And he just drops the ball. And you just want to see that cleaned up. And I think that might be something that's just part of his game right now, unfortunately. He's sluggish off the line of scrimmage into his routes. Like, there's just no way around it. He's almost 6, almost six, seven to 40. He doesn't move like your typical number one wide receiver off the line of scrimmage. It's a little bit of a delay.

I'm curious what his 10 yard ultimately will be. I don't need expectations for a 40. Like this is not somebody that's going to run in the four fours or maybe even low four fives. But the 10 yard is something that I look at right now and go, man, that's something he's you hope that he can find a little bit extra juice there. Explosiveness. He's just not, in my opinion, going to run away from a lot of pro caliber defenders.

And now it brings you to the point. Does he have to do that to be an effective NFL player? He might be able to live in a world where he's just not running away from people, but he is so big and he is so good at the catch point that he can get away with that. So I like Johnny Wilson, wide receiver 10 in a class where I'll tell you right now I'm staring at who I have 11 through 19. I ranked everybody I watched. He made it over some big names. So if you're disappointed at Johnny Wilsonson at 10 just know there's more disappointment

coming from other wide receivers like he really made it over some big time names and he's somebody that can be a legit possession number two at the next level so for the sake of just the flow of the podcast i have him higher i'm just going to talk about him now so we're not like going back and forth and revisiting it. Cause we want to get to his, there's a lot to do here. I have Johnny Wilson at five. I have,

I have Johnny Wilson at five kind of because of the strengths that you mentioned, they just don't make them like this dude. I mean, let me look at his measurables. He, if you just go six foot six, which I think he's a shade over six foot six.

Yep. If you just go six foot six, he think he's a shade over six foot six yep if you just go six foot six he is 98th percentile in height and if you go 237 pounds he's 98th percentile in weight he's just such a unique player and he uses his size really really well i love the wide base that he has before he gets in a snap in his in his stance because it allows him to get really low, which sometimes is difficult to do. You know, when you're going up against people, you know, maintaining leverage, kind of like getting out of your stance and then kind of popping up, getting to do what you need to do.

That's normally how you want to do it. Even these taller receivers. Yes, you want to be big. You want to be a head and shoulder above these guys. But especially when you're getting vertical, you want to start low. You want to get your first couple of strides a little bit low and then you're popping up kind of like a sprinter right ideally you want to get to as close as that as possible it helps you be fluid it helps you get up to your top speed and it's just a natural way to do it so love that his

uh that his base is really wide because it allows him to get low and he seems fairly comfortable and flexible in doing that you mentioned the catch radius radius. It's awesome, man. I mean, when he lets the balls kind of come into his chest, yeah, there are some drops that happen there. Think about it. For guys that have much shorter arms than him, it's easier to control and trap the ball with your arms because you don't have as long of arms to move, you know, like you just got shorter arms. So it's easier to control. It's easier to time when that ball's coming in. He's got super long vines for arms. So that makes it difficult. But when he is extending his arms really reliable, I think as a hands catcher, which is what you would want to see there. I agree.

I think the work on the sideline is great. They also use them in the slot. So he's comfortable there. You know that he's got that variety of routes that he can run with either sideline routes or two way goes from the middle. Although kind of like you said, he's not going to be running a lot of two-way goes. They're not going to put him in this lot of time at the NFL level. You know, I will say this.

If you're comparing Johnny Wilson to a sub-six-foot receiver, yeah, the burst is not going to be nearly the same. But I actually think for a player six foot six the guy's pretty athletic like i actually liked the burst so i think that's where you and i differ we see the strengths very similarly with him but i i did not know the burst as much of a negative as i've seen it be for players that are of his size and when you have such a great strength with your size and then a little bit better burst a little bit better of acceleration i think that that's something that's definitely positive to

note he's still getting the nuances just playing the position down especially with separation right i mean you mentioned he's not going to be this separation artist at the nfl level but still the subtleties of getting physical and boxing guys out and kind of extend have having a little offense uh opi a little pushing off to me but you do it in a way that is always commit opi you know you do it in a way that's artistic so that the ref goes oh nice little move there i'm not going to throw the flag on that you know that's got to be johnny wilson's friend as he's getting to the next level and uh and really becoming that top tier wide receiver in that regard like i think t higgins does a really great job of that you know and i think higgins is a little bit different of a receiver because higgins moves smoother because

he's a little bit lower of a weight which is to be expected i thought about plex goberis when i watched him oh i like that nice so plex goberis and i've heard this con before and and i've seen people try to use it for big wide receivers but i do like it for wilson Plexiglas Burris' numbers when he was coming out through, I think this was his pro day. Six foot six, 231 pounds, moved decently well. Four, five, nine, 40 yard dash for a guy that big. I'm like, okay, if Johnny Wilson runs a four, five, nine, great with it. 33 inch vert, 115 inch broad jump. Like that's the type of player that i think we're talking about here so i like wilson a lot i think the uniqueness of his size and how good of an athlete he is he's not this clunky athlete he's a lot more fluid of a player for a six foot six almost 240 pounds than you would expect and for that i've got him at number five in this class. Yeah. He's fascinating to me because he's somebody that

like, once again, take away a little bit of the body catching and you go to an offense that likes to use a big outside receiver like him and timing and ball placement is there. He'll, he'll be a possession threat and a red zone threat yep so and honestly you know it's funny you look at him in this class and i was like man so i watched him so early i think he was the fourth wide receiver i watched and i was like damn this guy's good and then when i watched 19 receivers he ended up a wide receiver 10 that's how how much I liked this class. All right. Okay. So who you got at nine? Let's move on. Zachary Franklin,

who, um, this'll be maybe the player with the most variants going into this year. And why I say that for those that don't know Zachary Franklin, people probably haven't seen a lot of him. He was, I didn't watch him. I watched 21 guys and I didn't watch Zachary Franklin.

So you're teaching me about him right now. Well, I've been waiting for him to declare for three years and he just never did so maybe this maybe that's why he wasn't on the radar because he just people are tired of it he played at utsa uh and uh in four years at utsa he had 268 catches349 yards and 37 touchdowns. And just last year, he had 93 catches, over 1,100 yards and 15 touchdowns. He now transfers to Ole Miss. I mean, you look at the production this dude had at UTSA since he was a freshman. The amount of space he's probably going to get in that Ole Miss offense. I think he it's dumb to say he's gonna explode this year because he already has he's been great for two years but he honestly he might have 1400 yards this year he really might and in

lane in lanes offense all right i believe it yeah so i love that they they tapped into the transfer portal and got this guy because you watch this offense and there's just times where the quarterback limits what franklin was able to do he's 6'1 185 um i don't think he's that tall i'm gonna check another source while we do this just to make sure so i got it up here actually another source has him about six feet and three quarters 186 so that the list side's actually real that's nice good job utsa thank you um lying to our face not lying the pros with franklin tons of experience and now he goes to an offense where the talent play calling and quarterback play should all be upgraded can make catches even ensure he'll play against higher level competition i get that but i think he's ready for it can make catches even when covered due to A plus tracking on deeper throws. 16 for 32 uncontested catches in 2022. For a guy that's not even six foot one,

like 50%, when you watch this, when you watch these throws, it's like, okay, this is not all jump balls are made the same. It was pretty good. True inside outside versatility. We throw that around, like around with a lot of guys but when you look at these guys that are 5'8 and 5'9 and they play inside and outside in college they don't play on the outside in the NFL they just don't this guy he's gonna play inside and outside in my opinion the NFL ran over a few defenders trying to jam him I love seeing that a lot of watching in this class guys struggled against press and there was a couple times where he actually he ran over guys trying to get hands on him so i like that kind of edge to his game sharp in and out of his

breaks with sinking hips on double moves extremely effective at spinning off tackles after the catch to fall forward for extra yards he constantly catches the ball and spins and it's not like a madden spin where it's like everybody's like oh shit that was crazy it's like an effective i'm strong guy spin. I could spin for another four or five yards and I really shouldn't get anywhere. He turns it up a different level when he could smell an opportunity for points,

which is a good and bad thing. Right? So that'll get me to my big, I listed one big con in his game, but he has 27 touchdown catches over the last two seasons, which is unbelievable. When, when they're in the red or or even they dialed up a play

where he's going to get a shot down the field, he looks like a top five receiver in this class. The counter to that is something that bothered me. You watch the Houston opener in 2022. The focus was just not where it needed to be. He was drifting into some routes. He wasn't ready for the ball to come his way. He didn't care as, I don't like to say not care.

That's a wild accusation. He didn't look as dialed in in between the 20s. And that's going to matter a lot in the SEC. So with Franklin, I don't think he has elite straight line speed. I think he has average straight line speed. I think he's quick. I think he's quick. I think he's strong. I think he's a very good wide receiver at the things that are done on the practice field.

Tracking the ball, routes, getting off press, footwork. He needs to be fully dialed in and be the best version of himself. And if he is, he'll make himself into a receiver that goes in the first three rounds. So he came in a wide receiver nine for me, which is probably the highest you'll see him across a lot of rankings. So I didn't watch him. I need to watch him.

He's now on the list for guys that I need to watch to make sure I get in the mock draft machine. But did you watch Malachi Corley from Western Kentucky? Oh yeah. Is he in your 10? He was wide receiver 12 for me. Okay. So he's 12 for me as well.

I've never watched more screens in my life. So the reason why I bring him up is because the, what you just said about Franklin and the player that he is in the red zone. Did you notice that Corley who has an incredibly unique skill set when the ball gets in his hand he turns into this incredible athlete it's like Ronald Delmore and when he doesn't have the ball dude I wrote shades of Debo Samuel in here yeah that's like I see it bro I really do what some of the plays that this guy has when the ball gets in his hand for after the catch stuff. Insane.

If you guys haven't watched or heard of Malachi Corley, he's played so many positions. Hold on. Let me. So he plays at Western Kentucky. He's 5'10 1⁄2", 212 pounds. He's a brick shithouse. Really.

He really is. Brick shithouse. Background bio. He was a two-star cornerback cornerback recruit coming out of campbellville uh kentucky he went to western kentucky as a cornerback recruit but switched positions when he arrived he played running back for the hill toppers then switched positions again then he was at wide receiver he said in high school i played cornerback i played safety i played basically every single position. I came in as a running back or I came in as a cornerback.

They moved me over to running back. Like there was scarcity on the roster. He's played so many different positions. And this guy, when he is running routes, like out of his stance and out of the slot or to the outside, he's kind of like a middle-of-the-pack athlete. I watched him before the ball got in his hands, and I was like, all right, the release is fine.

The ability to turn the hips and break is fine. When he gets into open space, how he's able to accelerate, I think that it's fine. When they threw him the ball and he got the ball in his hands, it's like he had a Super the ball and he got the ball in his hands it's like he had a super mario mushroom where he just goes insane everybody blitz turbo the nfl blitz turbo it just button held down yes that's what it's like catches the ball it's so different and so you talking about how different of a player franklin was in red zone. When I watched Corley, I was like, if you are, if you were that athlete at all times,

you'd be in the top 10 because I'd have a really hard time not thinking that some team's going to make a Debo Samuel like player out of you. Cause he's, there's a lot of tape. That's very fun of his, but here's the thing. You need to know Corley. He had 1,295 receiving yards last year.

Almost a thousand of them were after the catch. Dude. Like it? He's just 76% of his yards came after the catch. Honestly. He had 40. Okay, hold on. Hold on.

This is another stat to just talk about how crazy this is. He had an average depth of target of 6.8 yards, okay? He had 31 explosive plays still. That's 15. An explosive play in our metrics is 15 yards or more in the passing game. He had an average depth of target of 6.8 yards, and yet 31 receptions went for more than 15 yards. It's just wild the kind of player that he is.

He might be the shorter quarter L Patterson. That's how I would use Corley in the NFL. Sure. I don't think it's going to work full-time at wide receiver, but he could do it in spurts in the slot but if I have him in the backfield running in the flat he's terrifying to deal with um I just realized that I forgot to do this because we both talked about Johnny Wilson and then we went on to your nine I didn't actually say who my 10 was so great start sorry to everybody

out there and sorry to Ryan who's producing this he's probably screaming it wait did trevor forget the 10 um number 10 for me is texas a&m wide receiver moose muhammad so okay a guy a guy did not watch okay so moosh muhammad is in my list he is the son of carolina panthers legend moosh muhammad who was drafted in the second round of the 1996 based on that i should have watched already i know what are you doing out here all right so 18 out of 13 or sorry 18 out of 13. eight out of 13 contested catches over the last two years shows what kind of a great hands catcher he is which is something that i note in his strengths he also had 20 explosive plays and a deep target percentage of over 20 in each of the last two seasons so they were prioritizing this guy when they were really trying to take shots deep down the field.

Six foot one, 205 pounds is what he's measured in at. Six foot one, it's right around the 50th percentile, but it's technically 48th. So it's below that 50th mark. And then 205 is 59. So he's kind of right around the middle of the pack for what would be an NFL receiver in height and weight. I really just love how natural this dude is.

And there are some wide receivers that I have outside of my top 10 who maybe are more athletically talented than Moose Muhammad is, but he just makes the position so good. He makes it look so natural. And you figure that would be the case, right? I mean, he's got an NFL legend father as a wide receiver, and won't be the last time we talk about that on this podcast. Yeah, it's a pretty good thing to have.

You just see it in kind of how he plays the game. How he gets off the line of scrimmage is so smooth. How he's running his routes. How he's setting guys up. How he's using his shoulders and his head to try to fake defenders out and yet just turn to the hips the other way. It's all one very fluid motion. And then the hands.

I feel like the hands are so reliable for him when he's going up to get the ball whether it's a contested catch situation or not so i wrote here he's got zero fat on his release i mean he eats up space and gets into defenders and into his break with super controlled acceleration which is tough to do right when you are changing direction a lot of wide receivers naturally have to slow down in order to flip those hips and change direction with moose muhammad you can tell he's he's he's so comfortable in his own athletic ability and he understands route running so well he knows how to round it perfectly to where he continues his speed he maintains his speed and sometimes even gets faster as he's turning to get away from those defenders it naturally creates separation

which creates the bigger throwing windows and i think that that that also goes to play into his game so um he can get bullied a little bit with contact and and and i don't think that he's going to be this burner deep down the field so those kind of top tier athleticism points of strength and long speed he's not checking those top tier boxes to be a wide receiver one at the NFL level, but he just makes it look so easy. I feel like he could just play a variety of spots right now. A little summary that I have for him. Muhammad's understanding of how to win at the position is evident already at this point in his college career. You can tell how many hours that he's put into his craft with how smooth he is as a route runner, how quickly

he gets out of his release, how consistent his catching technique and catch success are. He feels like a really good slot receiver for how comfortable he is as a route runner and can really set guys up when you give him those two-way goes. He understands how to use leverage as well. Lack of long speed might limit how much of a true vertical separating player he could be on the outside, but I still think it's plenty to be a productive slot receiver at the next level. So I like Moose Muhammad as a really, really solid and productive wide receiver three. So I had him at number 10. So who'd you have at nine? So number nine, I'm sticking in the SEC. I'm going Antoine Juice Wells from South Carolina. Did you watch him? Back to back. You watched 21?

Yeah. And I watched 19 wide receivers, and I didn't watch your 10 or 9. And you didn't watch my 9. And I didn't watch your 9. You should talk about it. No, it makes for a better show, because while it's fun that we get to agree and disagree on players and rank them differently,

it's also we're bringing more players to the show by having both of us do this. Right. So Wells, he's at South Carolina, 6'1", so once again, 48th percentile, same as Muz Muhammad. 210 pounds, so a little bit bigger. That's 69th percentile. Nice.

So the background for Juice Wells, zero-star recruit coming out of highland springs virginia now in an article that i wrote because when i see zero star receiver and i watch how good he was at south carolina last year i go okay what happened were you playing a different sport and wells said himself he's like i did not care about my grades in high school. He's like, my grades made me ineligible to basically play at any school that would have been worth it that had a football team. And he said, admittedly, I didn't care. And, you know, he, he was able to kind of spin it and he had a great attitude about it. He's like, look, do I regret it? Sure. But it, it took me on a path in life where I'm proud of kind of where I am now

and everything, you know, obviously he said I on a path in life where I'm proud of kind of where I am now and everything. You know, obviously he said I wouldn't change it because now I'm in South Carolina. I love it. So, I mean, he's obviously spun it into something great. Originally, he committed to Fork Union Military Academy, which is in Virginia. Somebody went there recently, a bigger prospect.

You know, you've been in the game too long when like somebody says Fork Union, you're like, yeah, For's crazy you're gonna be you're gonna be driving on the interstate through the state of virginia and you're gonna be like yeah you can see the sign for it you're like we gotta stop you know so this is where this prospect went to school for one year it's gonna bother me he transferred over to james madison the following season all right so now he's got his chance to really make his mark in football not only did he do that he did that at a record setting pace he set jmu's single season record for catches receiving yards and touchdown receptions

transferred over south carolina in 2022 and he was an all-american candidate last year okay he had 555 yards after the catch on 941 receiving yards. That was almost 60% of his yards coming after the catch. Here's another stat that I loved about Wells. 95.8 of his catchable balls were caught. This dude attacks the ball in the air. And I love that about him. Absolutely love it. I wrote this in his little strengths category.

He approaches defenders like a one-on-one basketball player. He uses his shoulders, his hands, and his head as if he's dribbling a basketball in between his legs to fake out defenders and create open space near or beyond them. Got really reliable hands, as I mentioned. I also think it's pretty impressive how he was able to throttle down and sink the hips for quick turns and quick breaks on the ball. Now, he's still really learning the subtleties of playing the receiver position and you could tell that he's

a nice athlete he's really aggressive when the ball is in the air and those parts of his game are i think what are most important for you to lean on and project moving forward but if you're watching his tape last year you're not going to see a super nuanced player right i mean and you got to think about it he's only been playing in the sec one year that was competition level that was brand new to him as he was coming up from um from the military academy through jmu and now being in the sec so he is still getting that part of it down long speed i don't know if this guy's going to be a burner on the outside but the way that i labeled him is i feel like he is a he is just a really alluring possession type of wide receiver. And when I say possession type of wide receiver, I feel like people immediately say, like, oh, he's slow.

He's not slow. He's like NFL level athlete. But most of his bread and butter is going to come when he's going up in the air attacking the ball over defenders catching through contact and being a reliable guy with the subtle separation he's able to create so i like juice wells a lot i said with just one year of sec competition under his belt he's still learning the subtle ways to win at the position and create the separation but he is a determined possession receiver with good yards after catch ability as we saw in his pff data so juice wells number nine in this class for me man fork fork union just keeps doing it if you go to their wikipedia uh it's wild how many guys have played there who do we got well michael thomas and cardell jones played there together for a year. What? Yeah.

And then went to Ohio State. I had no idea. Yeah. Damn. It's wild. That's awesome. Plaxico Burris that you brought up earlier in the show. I mean, the list is so long.

Plaxico Burris went there? Yeah, Fork Union Military Academy. What a callback. If you go to the wiki, the list is like, there might be a hundred guys on this list. Virginia's got, Virginia is a, I feel like it's insulting to say Virginia's a sneaky football pipeline because it feels like they've been doing it for forever. But like, I don't feel,

I feel like people when they talk about football pipelines, they go California, Texas, Florida. And understandably so those are powerhouse states when it comes to producing great florida talent at a height or a football talent at a high school but like virginia dude it's nuts virginia got some talent now yeah when i when i did some recruiting stuff for br back in the day i didn't i yeah it was wildlife different different like a lifetime ago um i I did a Virginia trip once and some of the schools were just wildly loaded, wildly loaded.

All right. So number eight, yep. Back on track here. We're back on track here. I'd be surprised if we get a guy going forward that neither of us watched at this point, but we'll see. Uh, I hope I don't butcher this name. I really try not to butcher names, but a rock, is it a ronde gadsden or a ronde gadsden uh syracuse wide receiver i thought it was a ronde

gadsden that's what i'm we're gonna go with because that seems to make a lot of sense i don't have him in my top 10 okay so he is the player that is a tight end that is not a tight end correct he's a wide receiver we did the tight end that is not a tight end. Correct. He's a wide receiver. We did the tight end show and understandably people were like, oh, you guys didn't like Gadsden or you got to watch Gadsden. No, I very much saw Gadsden. When you watch, he's a power slot. Like he literally does not play tight end.

I cannot emphasize this enough. And there's nothing wrong with that. So he's an interesting player because he goes back to a little bit of the Johnny Wilson conversation without the mass. Why he came in as a wide receiver eight for me as I pull him up here. Well, number one, the size is what's going to stand out. Right. This is a this is a big dude. And why this is great podcasting right now. I can't even. Here we go.

OK, six, five to 16. He is a junior at Syracuse. He's coming off a first team all ACC year where he finished with 61 catches, 969 yards and six touchdowns. Like I said, the power slot of Syracuse's offense. I wrote in pros mismatch, small forward type of build. He is long, slender, but not really skinny, just slender. He's just got length. He's just got long arms, long legs. Nat. I thought he was a natural pass

catcher. I was pretty impressed with some of the catches he's able to make. And it's all hands. There's no like, let me talk about onto my chest. Let me stab the ball. He can really pluck the ball. And when you're six, five and you've got long arms and you naturally pluck the ball, you don't drop anything. That's a really good place to be. A tremendous catch radius, but he maximizes it with acrobatic adjustments. I mean, really, this is an offense that there's a couple of times it forces him to find a way to adjust the ball, whether it's behind him, over him, outreach. It's really impressive what he could do with his body when the ball is in the air.

This was the last line that's the most important to me. The seam is his kingdom. His straight line speed and size, when they have him run the seam, nobody defended it. Nobody defended it. He ran over the underneath defender. He's too big for the defender over the top to match up with him. He catches everything and he's got good build-up speed he really does

so if you go to an offense where they're like you're gonna run the seam it's almost how i envision dalton kincaid being used with the bills and i don't think gadsden is the upper echelon prospect kincaid was he's a good one i don't think he's a Kincaid prospect. It's that kind of usage where I'm like, this is a mismatch player. The cons, not a ton of agility and short area quickness, which at his size is kind of the game you're going to play. You're not signing up for this little shifty slot receiver. This is a bigger target and the short area quickness is not really there. These are the two things that bothered me so much to the point where I almost didn't have him at eight. He would have been more right behind Johnny Wilson because Johnny Wilson didn't have this problem.

But I didn't want to like really nitpick this over summer. If it's this way again this year, it will hurt him in my rankings. Two things can become more physical threat after the catch. I don't think he's physical enough with the ball in his hands. The second thing, the dog meter has to go up as a run blocker. He doesn't. And I'm not saying like the dog, dog meter down. You don't need to be this great run blocker to be a top three round pick in the NFL as a pass catcher. It makes me nervous when you want nothing to do with contact. There's a couple of times where he's asked to slice

or just blocking the slot. And it was kind of that shoulder dip or like the hands away. And I'm like, man, you are 6'5". You are 216. That's why he's not a tight end. He is not a tight end. Dude, he's not even a top five most physical receiver

without the ball in his hands Syracuse Syracuse moved him to tight end and I respect this they moved him to tight end so he could break a lot of records and so that that he that his name could be at the top nationally of every single tight end category so that Syracuse first team all ACC it's the national bump yes yes it is it is position manipulation um and it's not hurting him as a prospect but he's not a tight end and now i'll say this if he finds a new gear this year and becomes a he puts on more muscle and he becomes a physical player he's going to be a problem he's going to go in the top 50 picks of this draft he's going to be one of these mismatched weapons that a team loves to play in their slot as their power slot.

But if that physicality doesn't improve, it's these are the guys that that'll that'll in this business. They'll make you miss. They'll make you miss because the NFL is man, you stand anywhere near a sideline of athletes like this. And it is like standing on the side of the highway. It is. It's terrifying. And a lot of it is like standing on the side of the highway. It is, it's terrifying. And I, a lot of it's sink or swim when he gets the league. And I think that'll be the biggest adjustment for him.

So I fell in love with the traits. I really did. I think this dude is a fun pass catching weapon, like a real mismatch player. He's just going to have to find a different level in the dirty parts of the field to really hold down a top 10 pass catching spot in this class. He was the toughest player for me to rank. A bit of an enigma.

Yes. And, and I, I liked him for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned the, if you are doing, if you're approaching scouting for Gaston, like, what can he do for you? You know, you talk about that a lot of people talk about that in scouting, tell me what he can do. And I'll find a way to quantify what, how much of that strength is worth it, how good they are. And then where they fit on my football team. If you are looking at it through that lens, you're going to love this guy. I can understand why you would have him in the top 10. When I watched him, sure, that like basketball, small forward,

box you out, throw it to where the defender can't get it, but I can. All of that is just super alluring, especially how great he is as a hands catcher. That's all. You're checking those boxes and you're emphatically checking them. He is not very flexible i mean when it comes to him running routes that aren't just straight vertical routes or like a post route or something like that if you ask him to turn when he's at full speed it's going to take a while it's it's just it's not this smooth process for him he's just not a super flexible dude the he's a high-waisted player. He's tall. He's got long limbs.

Like, it's just difficult for him to diversify his route tree in that regard. Now, if you're running a straight vertical offense, sometimes that doesn't really matter to you if you're just sending him long all the time, especially from the slot. So for some teams, that'll matter. For other teams, it won't. I also was worried about the strength profile blocking. And then I wonder, like, okay, well, does that bleed over into contested catch situations at the NFL level? Because we know that you're not going to create separation with your agility.

You're going to be a contested catch player at the next level. So I would have had to check that box with a lot more faith that I know that you are going to be a strong contested catch receiver for me to put him in the top 10. So I like him. I understand what he brings to the table. I'm interested to see the strength profile that we'll get from the 2023 tape here from him coming up,

but I didn't have him in my top 10 for those reasons. I get it. It's the summer. Hardest part about summer scouting, which is the job of scouting itself is projecting and a lot of times we are watching not all the time but a lot of times we are watching 20 year olds that are not even tapped into the physical nature that they can find physically and sometimes though that's a big bet it's a big bet to make and that's probably why i've

gassed in right in the middle he has the pass catching traits of a top five target of a draft class he also has the holes in his game of a guy that doesn't get taken in the first three rounds he he seems like one of those players where it's like this team had a second rounder on him this team had a sixth round great on him and i'd had a sixth round grade on him. And I, and for once I'd be like, all right. Okay. I believe you.

Like who's your coach. Who's your play caller. Who's your quarterback. What personnel do you run? Yeah. Right. Right. Right.

Number eight for me, Rome. Oh, dunes. Hey, from Washington. Did he make your top 10? He did.

Okay. We could do him together because he was number five for me. Okay. All right. So Romo Dunze from Washington, he's a senior this year, measures in at six foot two and a half. So that's 76th percentile, 217 pounds, which is the 84th percentile. So well above the 50th percentile in both of those categories a little bit of a background four-star wide receiver prospect hailing from las vegas nevada he was the gatorade player of the year in uh in the state of nevada for the year 2019 uh which was his senior year i believe as a true freshman at washington he played in the four games he played just four games only had six receptions sophomore uh started seven in the nine and then um in 2022 he really took off as a

starter so his name's rome and i found this quote on him which i wanted to read quote my pops just really likes the roman empire with some of the key cool things within it how far it expanded some of those things that they did some of the influences that they had in the world and that's i guess where his first name comes from cool last name too oh doomsay roman doomsay yeah that is i mean it's i i want him to catch 12 touchdowns just so we could hear the exclamation of those calls it's an elite wide receiver name for sure um they some pff data stats that i want to read off which go into my strengths and weaknesses um also why i am a little bit lower on him i'm curious to hear kind of your thoughts on

on these things with you being a little bit higher on him low yard yards after the catch player he had over 1100 receiving yards in 2022 just 343 of those came after the catch he also has pretty low contested catch percentages over the last two years that was my biggest he's not a data darling in my opinion no but i you know i understand trevor lawrence when he says the game isn't played on paper and i i do agree with him there but but what'd you say nerds but uh those stats are sometimes there for a reason they could sometimes be the hints of some traits that you have as you're doing scouting he also had a very low contestant percentage contested catch percentage like I was saying just 16.7 percent of his contested catches were hauled in in 2021 and 25 in 2022 if you're

trying to gauge those you really would like to be around 50%, right? Like it kind of depends on your game, what type of receiver you are. If you are a big time possession kind of wide receiver, you definitely want to be over 50%, but something in the forties, fifties is typically what you look for. And then if you get into the sixties or if you get into the seventies,

like those are really notable numbers that you're pretty reliable as a contested catch guy which we will get to with a guy who's a little bit higher on my list um so look when you look at odun say he's he he's well built um jaylen mcmillan did a who is his teammate is the other wide receiver at Washington. Chad, I almost called him Chad Max with, cause that was his Twitter handle for so long. Max Chadwick did a great article when he sat down with, with McMillan and just did a little interview for it with him going into the college football season, which you guys can check out over at pff.com.

And McMillan talked about Odun Zayn. He's like, dude, can, dude's just one of the most athletic guys that I've ever seen. Like he can wake wake up get out of bed and do a backflip as I think what he said and you definitely see some plus athleticism at his size which is really alluring I say he's got a nice wiggle for a big man he can shimmy and shake his way into some separation knows how to dip that shoulder and avoid contact when he's running through zone coverage looks like a pretty fluid mover for a guy his size as well love how quickly the feet move because when you're of his size especially of his weight that is not always a guarantee sometimes the feet can be very heavy off the line of scrimmage especially when you look into the weaknesses he doesn't have that rare gear of

twitch and long speed okay so he's a good like he's a he's a he's a really good athlete but he's not like this crazy if he had that rare gear we'd be talking about a dunes a as like wide receiver two wide receiver one in his class just because of the size profile that he brings to it but he's not that kind of athlete he's still a great athlete though i don't want to i don't want that to sound like any slight the contested catch numbers are low but i feel like they can be higher given his abilities. I think that a realistic bump is there for him, but that's really what was holding me back because when I look at him and I go,

okay, he's not this once-in-a-lifetime type of athlete player. A lot of your stuff is probably going to be contested at the NFL level. That contested catch percentage has got to be higher. Yeah, I get it. I like Odunze a lot of your stuff is probably going to be contested at the NFL level. That contested catch percentage has got to be higher. Yeah, I get it. I like Odunze a lot. I think he's a well-rounded athlete, brings a ton to the table. I just got to see a little bit more of a strength profile in his game, because when you have that bigger size, I think that that's going to need to be a little bit more of your bread and butter, which I think it can be.

Like I said, I think he's got the ability to do it, but we got to see it in 2023. So that's why i had him eight yeah he's he's got the size speed combo in terms of speed of like a guy that big the real ability to build up speed item at five and i think it was weird right i went into it i thought i'd like him even more than that i kind of did too i thought i'd have him higher than five but still five in this class means something. What I'm saying is I had a lot more cons for a guy at five than you'd expect. And a lot of it is echoing what you said. I'll be a little quicker on him. Um, standout sprinter in high school in Nevada. I wrote desired size and speed combo is a true X wide receiver strides and speed on double moves is dangerous. Sometimes for context to his contested catch numbers are bad,

but also there's times where he gets so open that he, he's not having to put himself in contested catch situations. So which he should get credit for. He deserves credit for that. Right. And it's fun to watch an offense with Michael Penix playing quarterback and a dunes a playing wide receiver yeah flash's explosive uh playability with a big catch radius and then the last thing i wrote is skill set creates a very high ceiling but he does have a low floor right now for a lot of reasons his releases can be upright and stiff um his routes are undersold at times

it is absolute mayhem outside you would i'm not even gonna get into it yeah that's all i could say release but really like when underselling routes is something that when you're that you're as gifted as him just dial in on that because your routes will mean so much more i wrote down the contested catch numbers you did four of 16 last year not what you want to see now what you want to see he's not physically dominant at the catch point and it's two things for me he mistimes his leaps and arm extension it's weird it's like you're such a good athlete but there's times where you you jump at the wrong time or you put up your arms at the wrong time. Um,

I wrote more sprinter after the catch than creator. Like he's going to catch the ball and he's going to run like the wind, but he's not going to create yards. He's almost just, he's almost just such of an enigma of an athlete. You don't want to bet against him, but there's not a, there's,

there's just not a lot of polish. It feels like his game right now, which makes him a tough email that's why i had a minute i had as player comps uh uh soft player comp because obviously they're all soft player comps here in the summer i i had courtland sutton and his his numbers like athletically and i think measurable wise would be very close to what Sutton's was coming out of SMU. I think Sutton was more polished, but I feel like that's kind of the version of the player that Odunze can be

at the NFL level. Sutton was a maniac in contested catch though. That was the thing. I think that, I think that Sutton is a athletic comp. Like I think that's a build potential comp, but he is, Sutton is a athletic comp. Like, I think that's a build potential comp. But he's not there with the consistency that Sutton had coming out of SMU yet. I did have someone out there tell me, like, he's been killing everybody in every practice they had.

And, like, it means something because this is a team with, you know, McMillan is another highly thought-of wide receiver. They have Penix, they have so many draft draft prospects this year and they're a good program. And the thing I constantly hear is like a doomsday is just out here, just like destroying everyone. Yeah. So if he unlocks a new level this year, that's why that's their traits to bet on. Once again, straight down.

Totally. All right. So that takes item at five. You had him at eight. So now we're back on track at seven. Who did you have at eight? Gaston right yeah yeah no okay we're on we're on seven but before we get to seven i gotta talk to the fancy football people out there specifically because i know there's a lot of fancy people watching this show because it's a fire receiver episode we've all been in those

situations where we've drafted the incredible team we've had a really difficult decision of who to play each week and then the guy that we put on the bench team. We've had a really difficult decision of who to play each week. And then the guy that we put on the bench absolutely goes the hell off. Well, now with best ball on DraftKings, now you get the best of your entire team all season long. This year, best ball on DraftKings. It's bigger than better than ever with $10 million in guaranteed cash prizes that are up for grabs.

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Bonus is issued in $10 DK dollars. Age and eligibility restrictions apply. Voidware prohibited. See DraftKings.com slash promotions for details. All right, we got to unfortunately speed it up a little bit here, but who do you got at seven? Okay, so seven for me was Ladd McConkie. Let's go, baby.

I also had him seven. Bro, he's awesome, okay? That's so awesome, by the way. So awesome that we see his greatness. We watched, what did we watch? 40 wide receivers combined each. Well, maybe not. We got doubles, but you know what I'm saying?

Like 21 on my end, 19 on your end. This show did 40 evaluations. And we both had Ladd-McConkie at seven. I'll say it. Outside of the top five wide receivers he has the highest floor but it's it's insane how polished this player not i don't even think it's he's the most well-rounded is how i want that's the word you use or don't you don't you don't gotta back down from polished if you don't want to right i just feel like people are like oh shocking the little white wide receiver like

is a polished crafty he is he he is a stereotype in every way every great way every great way uh but i'll say this unlike a lot of players like him he is very explosive in terms of acceleration correct his acceleration challenges vertically because he is explosive 42 of his 58 catches went for a first down uh he played 427 snaps out wide and only 172 in the slot yep because he's really fucking fast yep that's you have to be to be that size and play on the outside and be on a championship team. Timing and footwork and routes is crisp and polished. He often makes the first guy miss. Like there are so many of his catches where the first guy always misses. I didn't really have a lot of bad things to say about him. I wrote some things where I'd include them in the evaluation as a question. I wrote Todd Munkin did a really good job scheming him

open for a couple of catch and run opportunities. That's just munkin's great at that he's not as comfortable hauling in vertical throws as the short intermediate ones there's a little more hesitation when the ball starts to go down the field for him where short intermediate it's like plucking the ball out of the air left and right and i'm making someone miss down the field was a little bit more of a work in progress, but McConkie is, I mean, he's a number three wide receiver in the NFL, maybe right now, honestly, like tomorrow, he tomorrow he's athletic. He's a great route runner. He's got good hands. He makes people miss. I, I was wildly impressed with him. And I know George has got some other big time, like wide receivers they expect to go off this year,

but this is the dude right here. He is the dude. So I did, you know, normally I kind of like wait to do film grades, but again, with me doing the PFF big board and the mock draft machine rankings. Yeah, you had to get your act together. No coking out on weekends, Sundays. Well, we're still, I mean, that does stop.

But Coca-Cola for life. Yeah, of course um so with him or with everybody i did summer scouting film grades like i specifically went through all the film as if i was like putting a final draft grade on them and i kind of came up with with summer scouting film grades for all these guys he had the second highest film grade behind only marvin harrison jr me. Cause it's just, how do you, for what you are asking him to be right.

What he does. He is so good at it already. Now I'm saying, Oh, like second highest film grade. I'm not saying that you draft lab McConkie in the top five. And there's obviously other wide receivers I have in this list because they have their,

they have higher ceilings due to the athletic build and the overall athleticism that they have and all that kinds of stuff but like what you are asking this guy to do what you're going to ask him do to do with the next level we just said it this guy could play in the nfl tomorrow and i truly believe that is that does that mean that he's going to be a wide receiver one in the nfl no but you guys know what i'm saying i mean he is just he's pretty incredible when he played high school this just goes to the type of natural mean, he is just, he's pretty incredible. When he played high school, this just goes to the type of natural athlete that he is. He was on varsity as a freshman.

I read that in an article that I read about his background. He played quarterback, running back, defensive back, punter, and was also a return specialist on the team. He also played varsity point guard for the basketball team, I believe, for all four years. This isn't some scrappy walk-on. No. This dude's a really, really good athlete.

As you would expect, he's got elite body control and change of direction in how he takes contact. It makes for an absolute brilliant route runner. He is very quick in his releases off the line of scrimmage. He's a reliable hands catcher. He's got great hand-eye coordination. Good yards after the catch player as well. And hey, he's a, for him being only, what was he listed at?

5'11", 185. So, his 21st percentile, 14th percentile. All right. Yeah. He's small. Breaking news. He is a very willing and fundamentally sound blocker, despite his size. Did you notice that?

Yes. Because that was his competitive toughness, man. You get on the field at georgia and not block outside wide receiver they make you block and so for as small as he is he really shows up in the blocking game as well i mentioned look he doesn't have that high gear of top speed but that acceleration is so quick he can make it seem like it with how he throttles up and down and how he's able to control his speed right he can almost be at that second to last gear but he can sell it as if it's his last one and then boom he'll just accelerate a little bit faster and there comes that separation because he timed it really well so he he over he not overcompensates he does compensate for a lack of natural top speed

with how he runs, with how he is able to pace himself, which you absolutely love. Now, okay, he can get off press and play on the outside, but that's also how you neutralize him. I watched a lot of his press snaps, specifically against Ohio State. Anytime he was in press on the outside against Ohio State, he wasn't creating a ton of separation naturally because it was tougher for him to get off of those

just because he doesn't have the body type for it. But my final note that I have on him, it feels cliche to say this, but McConkie represents the skill set of a smaller slot receiver that can be an elite producer in the NFL level. What he lacks in overall size, he makes up for with elite quickness, body control and footwork to produce an elite and brilliant route runner. He could be a 1000 yard receiver at the next level.

Like Hunter Renfro was a couple of years ago. That's what I have for him. Yeah. He's probably a, he's a better athlete. And I think, look, some people are going to, some, some people are obviously going to get on this and be like, dude, he's, he's athlete. And I think, look, some people are obviously going to get on this

and be like, dude, he's small. He's a small dude. Like, what are you talking about? Did you hear the quote a couple of weeks ago, maybe it was a month-ish ago, where Ryan Clark on the Pivot podcast asked Derwin James, like, who is the toughest receivers were in the NFL? Or I believe the question was staged, what do you do when you're going up against one of those top receivers?

And they started listing them. They started saying, like, DeAndre Hopkins, Justin Jefferson. And then I'm pretty sure Derwin James goes, Hunter Renfro. And they're like, I believe it. What did you just say? And Derwin James is like, Hunter Renfro, go turn on the tape. And he's like, he's one of the hardest dudes to guard in the entire NFL. He's like, go turn on the tape. And I was like, look, man, I love Derwin James out there saying that I could put Ladd McConkie in the top seven. All right. We've got a six.

Man, the pod carries the flag of Ladd McConkie. I never thought we'd be here. Six. Iroy franklin from morgan did did he not make your top 10 judge by your face he did not no sad so he was so he was 11 for me he's okay he's hovering yeah troy franklin i guess really surprised me because he just grew on me the more i watched him like the first game i watched him i was like he's not making my top 10 no way and then i watched like three more games and i was like damn this dude does some really good things last year he had 61 catches 891 yards nine touchdowns primarily playing on the outside uh plus length very quick first step to release off the line of scrimmage and explode into his route he is 6'3 179 so he is kind of that string bean he is

build again um but he's got very quick feet he understands the leverage game against man coverage especially in the red zone he just understands how to win inside or outside depending what the corner is giving or not giving him which i think is a very underrated aspect of playing the position i thought he pretty much caught everything that was in his radius. Anything that was from Bo Nix that was in this dude's radius, he snagged it. And he plays fast in the short area and he has really good striding long speed. So I think he's a good athlete. I think he's quick and fast with length i typically if you have length you're quick you're have deep speed

and you have good hands i'm going to think very highly of you despite limitations and limitations were very lanky builds he needs to bulk up to deal with press at the next level people are going to get hands on him and try to disrupt that release but But it also goes back to, he's been able to overcome that because he has such a quick first step. He's still learning though. This is something that can be taught, which gives me a lot of promise for his projection, but it's a problem right now. He's still learning how to find the soft area zone. He runs into coverage a lot. There's so many times where I look at the offense, especially playing in the pack. And I'm like, man, you just notice sit right there like bo nix is gonna find you but you kind of drift into defenders so that was the iq side that i'm like okay this could be coached up and seasoned for a young player but i think troy

franklin he's got a lot of the identity um and skill set of of somebody that at least you see number two wide receiver promise because he could stretch the field but he could also play underneath as well but he's still trying to figure out how to consistently play underneath against zone so i had him 11 and he was he was flirting with that top 10 like i put him in the same tier as juice wells as musha muhammad as so like he's he was right there i just happened to have him at 11 but i really do believe that and i don't say this is a cop out because i have him one spot outside of the top 10 this is the dude who i believe the most who could be a top 10 receiver in this class because he took such a big leap from 2021 to 2022 yeah he did he was 0 for 7 on contested catches in 2021 jumped all the way up

to 7 for 11 which is 63.6 i mentioned you get something in the sixes that's pretty or that's pretty dang the 60s that's pretty dang good coaches also praised him for the work that he put in in the gym to change his body and get stronger before last season so this is somebody who right now really great vertical threat player if you are sending him deep on a post or a go route this dude has the long strides he's got the long legs at six foot three and he's got good athleticism to really be a great deep threat player he's still learning those nuances of the position like you mentioned he's stronger but he's still learning exactly how to get off that contact once those defenders really get into him exactly how to break loose and create that throwing window

to create that ability to go up and get the ball in the air 30 40 50 yards deep down the field so i am so encouraged by what i saw in the growth in him from 2021 to 2022 that i absolutely believe that he could be a top 10 wide receiver in this class i just had him on a little bit on the outside because where he did get stronger where he did get better more honed in more polished we still need that next step and if he takes those next step if he continues to get better this is a really talented football player who i think is going to produce really well but that's why i had him at 11 um number six a lot of upside with troy franklin a lot of upside number six for me is xavier worthy do you have him higher oh yes i do oh okay but we could talk about him

here sure do you have i have him fourth oh okay i mean dude but i i you're like you're making me think you got him at like one or something i thought he was oh i do dude that's good i mean i thought that's here like number four four three and two i i was like these guys are bonkers good so i i think xavier worthy is incredibly talented but i think he's a tale of two players right now um so he measures in six foot one 164 pounds which let's let's make sure we put this out here six foot ones a 48th percentile which we have mentioned so just below average 164 pounds would be in the first percentile of wide receivers okay yeah but he's gonna he'll be he'll be way more than that at the combine i i'm just saying he's got to go to he's in he's playing for texas he's got to go to Terry Black's and eat some brisket.

I'm waiting for it. Do it now. Don't wait for the combine. So he's a four-star wide receiver coming out of Fresno, California. I read that he ran the 100-meter dash. This is sophomore in high school, folks. Sophomore. What were you doing when you were a sophomore in high school?

Not doing that. I wasn't running a 10- 5, 500-meter dash. No shot. So what I like about him, the long strides, the long speed. I mean, this dude is a sprinter when he opens it up. He is very difficult to stay even with and stay in front of. As a deep threat, this guy can really can really fly he's got the long strides but it's not just it's not like he makes it look bad either it's not like he's an awkward track guy who happens to be wearing football pads and a football helmet this

dude is smooth and quick for as good as he is explosive with that long speed. The lower weight profile, so the fact that he is in the 160s, it gives him really great body control to stick his foot in the ground to flip those hips very quickly for any kind of comebacks, any kind of curls, anything like that. So not only does he stretch the field like that, but he is a consistent vertical threat, yet he is somebody who could put his foot in the ground and really turn those hips very, very quickly.

That is the making of a really dangerous and difficult to guard outside wide receiver. So I wanted to make sure that I said all of that there. He only had 80 yards after the catch in 2022. Did you see that? No one's near him. You know two things. There's this place where no one's near him okay he's flying okay then i want the top line i wrote for the negatives was featherweight

frame and tackles look vicious okay so here so like arms and legs going everywhere this is this is my issue with xavier worthy he looks like he's getting wwe ragdoll actually i weigh more than him so no i take that back against college football players they don't get easier at the nfl level no dude so like german suplex so okay he had seven drops in 2022 all right so i think that that was an. Number two, the the missed tackles forced went from 14 in 2021 to four in 2022. Now, massive drop. How did you how did you become less of a playmaker? Sometimes forced missed tackles are about opportunity and how much space you have in front of you.

It's not always guaranteed as a wide receiver like it is for a running back. I understand that. But 10 less? I don't know how we're getting to that point. I'll read my little summary of him because it kind of goes into some of the weaknesses that I have in this game. The story for Xavier Worthy thus far, to me, seems like a tale of two different players. He just did not look as confident or motivated in 2022

the way he did as a freshman in 2021. He has like every Texas freshman receiving record in the book. Most receiving yards in a single season by a freshman. Most receiving yards in a single game by a freshman. Most receiving touchdowns in a full season from a freshman. Most receiving yard touchdowns in a game. Most receptions in a game by a freshman. like these are all records that he has in 2020 and he just did not look like the same type of player and i and i do not know why really head scratching

drops in 2022 have no idea why that was the case he's got to cut that down he's got to be more reliable i know that he can be but i'm wondering how it even happened in 2022. And I felt as though that the deep ball tracking for him was not as good or as natural as it needs to be for a player who I'm going to rely on for his speed to be a vertical threat for me. You got to be able to track the ball a little bit better deep down the field. That all combined with the fact that I just straight up think he's got to gain weight. You got to be in the 170s at the very least when you get to the NFL level. You have to. Or a lot of this stuff is not going to work your speed's just going to get engulfed so like i'd like xavier worthy but that's that was my thoughts on that's why i had him at six and not higher

i had him at fourth yep i wrote down and yeah the the negatives are definitely like when he gets tackled it's just like god is something to break here at some moment? Um, the focus drops on, I wrote, he had too many focus drops on layups. That's what bothered me. It's not like they weren't contested. Catch.

No, not even traffic. No, it's just like, it was in your lap and you just dropped the ball. It's like, what's going on? But his skill set is tantalizing.

I mean, burner wheels, burner wheels. He can flat out fly uh he sells the double move with head and shoulder fakes and some corners like there was a slant and go where the corner fell and i was just like yeah i would too i mean you have to bite down hard on the slam because he's fast and then when he gets down the field he's gone really impressive compete level in the red zone with leaping ability like i thought he's another guy that dialed it up in the red legit returner ability i the last thing i wrote that just matters so much at this position he plays fast in everything he does he does play fast yes

not big 12 fast it's nfl fast it would look fast on an NFL field. So I'm a believer, but you, you highlighted it, Trevor, of what holds him back from maybe being the number two wide receiver in this draft. Honestly, honestly, because he has, he has the talent to be the number two wide was Roma Dunze and then Worthy was four. I have four names in my top four. So there's somebody in my top four that you don't have in your top ten. Ooh. Spicy. I'm not surprised. I have two guys outside of my top ten that I knew people were going to have a freak out about. And I don't.

I'm like, whatever. My number four is A.D. Mitchell. Okay. I didn't have him in my top 10. But I get it. I couldn't bring myself to do that. It's you have to sell me on a lot of promise. And I believe he can get there there what do i need to sell you

dude he has not been that productive yeah but he's had his flashes are as good as anybody that's what i'm saying but you do that to me with a greek gilbert i just want. I just want to, I just want to make sure. Okay. Don't, don't, don't you do not do how long have you been holding that for one, two, nine catches last year and 29 the year before that. He's a freak though. I want to hear how he's number four for you. I'm looking something up. Hold on. Hold on. Oh, man. I can't believe four. This might come back to bite me. Or it might not.

Yeah, I like A.D. Mitchell a lot. Okay, so, yeah, I was looking up catching numbers from last year, and I was like, Ladd-McConkie and Brock Barris are dominating that entire passing offense. And they were i mean it's and you disrespect lad mcconkey but not even putting him as the i know mitchell transferred but still d mitchell has a higher ceiling than sure he does he there's no denying that okay that's what i have it for he's not a better prospect right now well i'm not drafting him right anyways all right so you could this is the time to do this i just did it with i just did it with troy franklin i did it with a freak gilbert uh six i'll do it again oh man i'll do it again damn it so ad mitchell uh he was at the university of georgia now he's

in texas he transferred over six foot three. Prouded room, by the way. Dude, stupid. Embarrassing. My sleeper was Isaiah Nair. Yeah, right. I love that dude. Who's getting the targets in this offense after Worthy? You mean after A.D. Mitchell. Six foot four, 91st percentile.

I can't believe this. 195, so that's the 34th percentile. So for those keeping score at home, he's bigger and taller than Xavier Worthy is. More now, though. No one's keeping score. A.D. Mitchell. He was a three-star wide receiver prospect coming out of Tennessee.

He was actually born in Texas, though. He was actually born in Missouri City, Texas. Played his first two seasons in Georgia. Played 21 games with 15 starts total during his UGA career. In 2022, he missed nine games due to a high ankle sprain. There you go, Connor. That's why he didn't have a lot of catches. Not built for this.

Jesus. But played in six games with three starts during when he was actually healthy out there. Now, look. I will admit he has had receiver grades in the 60s both the last two years 65.5 receiving grade his first year 66 receiving grade his second season i will uh on a positive note had six drops in 2021 zero in 2022 now of course he missed nine games so that goes into it but i'm still thinking this is double he had nine catches contested catch percentage was 50 during his freshman season

44.5 that second season um this is what was really intriguing to me was the usage and how it changed from when he was a freshman to even the limited amount that he played last year 19.2 of his targets were deep targets so 20 or more yards down the field in 2021. Then 41.2, so even in the little amount that he played, he became a much bigger deep threat to them than he was in the previous year. Strengths of A.D. Mitchell. Love the shoulder dip to avoid the contact, man.

Whether it's right at the line of scrimmage, three yards off the line of scrimmage, five yards off the line of scrimmage, five yards off the line of scrimmage, wherever the cornerback is, when he has eaten up that space and really getting into him, when he is going vertical and he's got to get around these dudes, he is very subtle with shimmying his hips real quick, dipping around where the contact is going to be,

not just running into these players. He really knows how to avoid contact, and I think that's great, and it makes for a really good route runner when it comes to cutting through zone coverage and he's got really precise route running ability especially when it comes to his turns for a player who is six foot four lightning quick feet on his release doesn't know quite how to use that footwork yet and that ability to move that feet as quickly as he does but man i feel like he's got the framework to be an elite separator off the line scrimmage with his releases weaknesses

he can definitely look out of control of time sometimes it looks like he's just going too fast for his body and he's he's running and he's going to figure it out later so i think he's a little bit out of control needs to get more controlled for sure he's got to put on more weight as well to get stronger through contact but uh i do think that his baseline for strength at the catch point is pretty good especially when he's kind of fighting through routes and fighting through those contacts over the middle. My summary for him, A.D. Mitchell has a very alluring skill set. Lightning quick footwork is something that I always gravitate towards

when it comes to winning very quickly every single play, which I believe he has the ability to do. His body control and his breaking points lay the groundwork for a fantastic runner at the pro level needs to get stronger for better balance, better fight through contact when he is getting deep down the field. But this is the type of athlete that you covet at the position. So I like him. And I get it.

I like him a lot. When I watched him, the touchdown against Ohio state was just bananas. Like you look at the release and the double head fake. And I was just at that size. It's sick. I just, I need to see him put it together this year at Texas for a,

an extended stretch. And his touchdown versus Oregon was sick, dude. He's, I mean, three of his, three of his nine catches were touchdowns last year. So follow the money,

Connor. He called the red. It it's called it's called the money zone for a reason i i get it i really do i looked at that depth chart after watching it's stupid worthy it's watching him and watching isaiah nair who's coming back from the torn acl last year after transferring from wyoming and we had their tight end obviously as the tight end two on our tight end show what was i'm like uh it was eddie mitchell's threat it's just i remember jatavion sanders was who i was thinking of there is weapons galore for coin viewers. Weapons galore. So,

four is rich for my blood, but he absolutely could get there. I think we have the same top three. We should. I think we have the same top three. Who's three for you, though? Malik Neighbors. Alright, Neighbors is two for me. Okay, so you have Emeka

Egbuka at three three at three yeah yeah yeah so we'll talk about them together yep i mean kind of a coin flip here at three and two i i went with ibuka over him for a couple reasons i'll get to malik neighbors is wildly talented yes i i wrote down right away dj more oh i like that a lot like it it came so natural oh man i like that a lot i'm like this is dj more and he deserves all that praise i mean keep going i'm looking up dj moore's mock draftable um okay so neighbors coming off a year 72 catches 1017 yards only three touchdowns but really good production in between the 20s in high school he ran a 444 40 and had a 38 inch vertical he'll run in the four threes and he'll top 40 inches in the vert he played 241 snaps in the slot 379 outside possesses plus acceleration and can win over

the top he was 13 for 21 uncontested catches he forced 21 missed tackles he runs through defenders with very impressive pound for pound strength yeah like it's he plays a lot bigger than his listed size and weight he'll grind out yards off slants screens and pitch passes has plus body control for adjustments and sideline toe taps honestly the two things i wrote down with him are things i want to see not things that are wrong with him i wrote majority of his targeted routes are uh, slant, or go in an LSU offense that did create a lot of space for him to operate. And he hasn't really developed his red zone game yet. Now, in terms of being able to excel at all three levels of the field at the position with athleticism and being a creator with the ball in his hands, this guy's got it all.

He's got it all. I think he's going to have a massive year. I think he's going to be a first round wide receiver. Yep. And I think if you're an offense that likes to, well, I hate just doing the constant like Kyle Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan,

but like the Shanahan tree of how do I put my players in space and timing and let them catch and run? this guy's going to be a thousand yard receiver at the NFL level and that kind of offense, the Rams, the Niners. There's so many offenses that are emulating that, but Cincinnati, but this dude's really freaking good, man. He is. And amongst some of the other athletic things that you talked about after the catch when it comes to reeling in the football i mean he does it incredibly well when we talk about pff data point that we have catchable passes that were caught you want to be in the high 80s or low 90s he's at 93 which is really dang good i mean when you get to 90 i think

it's like 93.8 percent of his catchable passes i mean when you get to 90 i think it's like 93.8 of his catchable passes were caught when you get to that point you are a super reliable pass catcher and then when you go over to contested catch percentages 61.9 of his contested catches were hauled in so this dude just gets it and my first strength that i have of him is comfortable using his hands um Really nice athlete. They're reliable and strong. He's a willing blocker, although his size does sometimes hurt him there. Turns into a great playmaker once that ball is in his hands.

Smooth and precise when sinking his hips to change direction. There's not a lot to hate about Malik Nabors. And that's why I've got him at number two. I said Nabors just has the feel of a natural-born receiver. His hands are fantastic, as is evidenced by his high catch percentages. Also becomes a great playmaker when that ball is in his hands for after-the-catch opportunities. Not as nuanced of a route runner as he can be yet,

but the ability is certainly there. Also wanted to note that he had 15 third down receptions in 2022 he had also 26 targets on third down which was the most by far on the team when they needed a big catch they went to malik neighbors and he often delivered for them so that's i got him at two and then you got uh egg buka at number at number two i got him at three okay so we'll get into buka obviously you start this one off i did neighbors first sure yeah five star wide receiver uh from the great state of washington uh who's the washington gatorade player of the year in his junior season tough to do uh so that's that's very that's very hard to do that is very very difficult um to do when you look at uh egg buka 85.5 receiving grade

in 2022 he did have five drops in 2022 but there's a lot of volume that's going in there he also had a pretty decent contested catch percentage it was 52.9 when you go to his strengths oh i should uh mention height weight uh he was he measured in at least ohio state says at six foot one 48th percentile 205 pounds 59th percentile. Elite short area quickness and change of direction. I think he's going to be an elite slot receiver at the NFL level. I really do. Now, he only played 17% of his receiving snaps in the slot last season. But to me, the skill set of how great this guy is getting out of his release,

then that short area athleticism just speaks as a slot receiver to me. When I watched him, I felt like he was a little bit bigger, a little bit faster version of Amon Ross St. Brown. Like that's the type of player that I saw. And that's the type of productivity that I saw from him. If you allow him to base what he does out of a slot,

really good flexibility to sink those hips, throttle down his speed, change of direction and breaking the routes it just makes him a separation master he becomes so fantastic at it i don't think he's a crazy elite twitched up athlete when it comes to explosiveness but i think the rest of it's really there for him man i think he's a quick hitting wide receiver very good overall athlete still who i think brings good long speed to the uh to the conversation as well which i think that even if you have him as a slot receiver he is consistently to me somebody who can threaten

you vertically which only makes you more of a threat only makes you uh more of a target on the defensive side of things so that's the way that i saw him i had him at number three i had neighbors at two but honestly it was a coin flip i went back and forth this week as i was watching a lot of these guys same he landed at number two for me i wrote down keenan allen with a question mark in terms of very similar uh technicians is what i would call it a fun fact about him i don't think you said this he i played baseball growing up he was a national champion when he was in 2011, MLB's pitch hit and run. Whoa, I didn't know that. Yeah, for seven and eight year olds.

So when he was really young, he was like, obviously, crazy baseball player, eventually gravitated fully towards football. Physical in his routes, I thought he could really run when he gets working in the intermediate and deep ranges of the field. You kind of see him open up a little bit more. Nightmare to deal with in his routes. I thought he could really run. When he gets working in the intermediate and deep ranges of the field, you kind of see him open up a little bit more. Nightmare to deal with in the slot. Great feet. Just great feet.

It's Ohio State, man. I would love to watch those wide receivers go to work with Hartline and just see it live because these guys are unlike any other. Full extension with his catch radius to pluck the ball out of the air. He had a couple drops that were him running before catching. It's just mental. I mean, he wants the big play. Sometimes you got to slow these guys down.

He just tried to run a couple times before catching the ball and it was a drop. OSU got the ball in his hands on screens and pitch passes to utilize the kind of athlete he is. The intermediate technician aspect of his game is just so advanced that's why i wrote down keaton allen it's just every stem route stem is perfect every single understanding of spacing in front of him is perfect um 9 of 17 on fantastic catch opportunities this is just somebody that i'll just be floored if he doesn't play in the

nfl barring injury for eight to ten years he just he's yeah he just does everything the right way he does everything the right way and he's just built to play the position mentally physically athletically um and it's it's fun when you're watching from a guy in a program like that that is also in a program that amplifies that and that was Ibuka to me both these guys are I mean you mentioned it would be so hard to see their skill set I mean Ibuka's floor to me is so high I think he just be an elite wide receiver at the slot level but wherever you want to play him I think that his skill set is going to be able to shine you're going to be able to get something out of him for sure all right we got one guy left it's the it's the headliner it's going to be a

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shed travel bag wow i think that's new yeah i definitely don't have one of those the oh no yes i do the travel bag yeah i i uh i actually legitimately use the travel bag there we go it came to europe the travel bag has been to more countries than some people that is a personal endorsement yeah those i don't give those out for free usually but they did hook me up with a travel bag so shout out to oh the trimmer is also waterproof smooth sack summer yeah smooth you're on you're in smooth sack summer for sure all right 20 off and free shipping with the promo code pff of manscape.com smooth sack summer is back boys it's time to get on board or get left behind what a transition into Marvin Harrison Jr.

Why receiver one in this class? I mentioned this. Oh, he's number one for you? Oh. Yeah, yeah. Oh, he didn't make your top 10? That's crazy. No, no. He's the best player in the draft.

Why receiver one for us? I mentioned that somebody having a former NFL father in Musha Muhammad wouldn't be the last time they mentioned it. So of course, Marvin Harrison Jr., the son of Marvin Harris, the senior, the legendary Indianapolis Colts wide receiver, six foot four, 205 pounds as the 91st and a 59th percentile. What's what's left to say, I feel like about guy? As a sophomore in 2022, so last year, Harrison was voted a unanimous All-American, and he was the receiver of the year after recording 1,200 yards and 14 touchdowns. 60% contested catch percentage, an elite 90.7 PFF receiving grade last year. 36 explosive plays of 15 yards or more through the air.

That was the number one mark in the FBS. Connor, let me know what you thought about this dude, and then I'll kind of piggyback off of that. It's almost start with Marvin Harrison. You have to start where it ended last year. Watch Ohio State when he gets hurt in their final game of the season. Great way to say it. And that tells me everything about Marvin Harrison Jr.

He is the most important player to his team in college football. And for a wide receiver to be that, it's just unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And when you look at this guy, you know, I went into this with such a fascinating perspective because it's just natural. When I obviously watch college football and I've seen a lot of Marvin Harrison Jr.,

how could you not? And there's so much hype around him because his dad is an all-time great. He plays now at Ohio State, a great program, great wide receivers they've been good while he's been there everybody in the fantasy community is drooling over him you go in with so much hype and so much of this job i feel like is me trying to just like shelter from hype and just evaluate what i see and i almost went in not jaded at all because that's ridiculous but like with an

outlook i was like, is Marvin Harrison going to be able to justify this level of hype? Because this is unfair to anyone as a prospect. And he still exceeded it. He still exceeded it. Because I knew he'd catch a bunch of touchdowns. I knew he would be big, strong, fast.

But the things he also does, while being the most physically gifted player on the field and being the most productive player on the field and being the most important player on the field he still runs phenomenal routes like the work ethic is just clearly out of this world it doesn't matter that his dad was an all-time grade or that like this dude clearly has incredible work ethic you cannot jam him at the line of scrimmage he has long arms he clearly puts in the work in the weight room because unlike his dad who is kind of this like anomaly when you look at marvin harrison like if you just showed somebody

a picture of marvin harrison when he was what 21 you'd be like you'd be like yeah this dude ended up being one of the greatest wide receivers of his generation. And they were like, really? Like that skinny guy? And it's like, yeah. Unlike his dad, who's just incredible, this dude is a monster. So muscular, big, fast, gifted. This is the things, though, that when I found this on tape i was like he's he's got it all he gets held so much so much and instead of complaining to the ref or stopping the play

he just fights like hell he fights like hell through and still makes a play because he's that good that somebody can literally should be penalized and it doesn't that can't even stop him that can't even stop him that's how good he is uh excellent improviser when the play breaks down he's an acrobat he's got late hands which i'm sure his dad taught him what i what i mean by late hands is like he doesn't put his hands up till he absolutely has to so a corner can't get a read on the ball without looking at the quarterback the last thing trevor that just blew my mind, when they were up in a game, what, 45-7, I don't know why he's on the field, and a long run breaks down 40 yards down the field. He ran 45 yards down the field and made a kill shot block to seal the touchdown run.

They're up 45-7 in the fourth quarter. Yeah. And he runs 45 yards down the field for his teammate to score a touchdown. I just, he's, dare I say, like almost a perfect player. He's almost a perfect player. I think he's the best player in the draft. There's so many things

that Marvin Harrison Jr. does so very well. You highlighted a lot of them and a lot of like the typical boxes that you go to check for a wide receiver. You check those very quickly with him but then you mentioned just how nuanced this guy is the late hands i love that you mentioned how he's able to get off press the line scrimmage that was the very first thing that i i wrote down is he has his hands up and ready at the snap because if you try to extend your hand on him boom he's knocking it away and all

of a sudden that's free separation from it he and not to say that like he won't get pressed in the nfl and he'll be able to break it every time but he already understands so much of that he understands like how to sell the routes how to get separation with you know turning a little bit this way to get the corner to just barely open up their hips to the right and then you're attacking where their blind side is going to be like he understands all of those things so not only does he check all the boxes from a height perspective from a weight perspective from a work ethic perspective from a uh athletic perspective whatever like it's even those small technique things that he is getting down at what feels like an NFL starting caliber level now.

I mean, we just watched his true sophomore tape, the true sophomore tape that we're watching. And it feels like we're watching some NFL tape from him. So I don't want to say that he's going to be like immediately come into the NFL and beat Calvin Johnson or Randy Moss. I'm not trying to say that, but this is somebody who you should absolutely be excited about. This is somebody who you're going to see him in the top five top ten of a lot of mock drafts and it's and the hype

is absolutely warranted what he does from again just a true sophomore that tape is uh pretty incredible look i i asked you something crazy not to cut you off but i don't want to forget this i can't forget this yeah yeah when you do the deep dive marvin harrison eval the way we did yeah i'm not gonna say it changed things because that's just a wild overreaction but did it at least raise your concern level half a notch that like strut like he does things for stroud that i was just like man like stroud's gonna miss having a guy like that. I know it's maybe so stupid to say. There were a handful of things that I watched with Ibuka and Marvin Harrison Jr. when I

went, okay, they bailed out Stroud there. But I, I mean, I'm not saying Stroud, I'm taking anything back on Stroud as a prospect. I'm just saying like, I also noted that when I watched Stroud and I know that you did too, but it's like it you do you kind of watch things from a different perspective this way yeah i was like man like it's he he changes how your confidence as a quarterback is what i'm trying to say you recognize how good this guy is individually when you truly put him under the microscope right you're able to eliminate i don't want to say eliminate but you're able to

separate him a little bit from the quarterback that's throwing in the ball to the offense that's around him all that kinds of stuff and you go okay how do you win individually and marvin harrison jr just wins in so many ways i don't even think he's the great i don't even think he's like this great straight line athlete i don't think he's this crazy vertical burner, but it doesn't really matter. He's so confident in his other abilities that he creates separation in a lot of different ways. And he's consistently a vertical threat in that regard. I don't think there's any route that he can't run.

I don't think there's any offense that he wouldn't be a wide receiver one in. He's extremely reliable in his catches. Oh, just to the overall like long speed point, he's not a big yak guy his he had 12 he had over 1200 total receiving yards last year just 312 and 23 of them came after the catch so i did not notice that being a big part of his game certainly when opportunities were there he was able to take them a little bit but that's less than you know that's less than 25 percent of your yards coming after the catch we've talked about

guys who sometimes their yards are anywhere from 40 to 60 percent after the catch so marvin harrison's is lower so i don't think he's like this yak king just go throw him the ball and he's going to come down with it for you so that's why he's number one for me as well and one last thing that was funny to me we we had him charged with three drops on 118 targets which is just like it's nothing it's unreal yeah only two only two are his fault one of the drops is i didn't watch the drops i was like i was like because i wasn't even worried about it i was like damn he's i was like, I was like, cause I wasn't even worried about it. I was like, damn, I was like somehow even better than his already great number. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, his dad was six feet tall, 185 pounds. He's six, four, two Oh five. So yeah, he'll play at two 15 in his sleep.

I mean like just gifted dudes and built to be phenomenal at the position. And I feel like he already is so yeah the old like wide receiver in a lab this is this is it this is the picture next to that well race i don't want to totally say that because every time i say that i just picture calvin johnson but right i know i can i'm not gonna call him calvin johnson he's really damn good receiver and that's how we're gonna end it yeah somebody did text me and they're like do you did you like chase better because they knew how much i liked chase chase is my favorite wide receiver i've ever evaluated before the draft oh and i said i i still have chase maybe a hair ahead because chase was like after the catch yes right like right but

marvin's got a year left i know i don't have a grade on marvin you got like a grade grade filed right you've got it you got to wait to answer that question until the fact that conversation, the question exists, shows you how good he is. It definitely, it definitely absolutely does. There we go,

folks. That is the wide receiver episode. We probably went over about 13, 14 of these guys that we have, uh, that we, that we ranked, um,

some of them that made Connor's list, some of them that made mine that we got to chat about a little bit more. But of course, we would like to hear from you guys as well. You know that there's a lot of other receivers that we watch in this class that we did not get to talk about here. So hit us up in the comments. Honestly, we know that you guys are fans of these players, whether you've watched them just from a college football perspective

or a scouting perspective or a Devy perspective, whatever it is, we've got a lot of thoughts on these guys. we just don't have the time to fill them all in this show here but we will in the comments i promise we'll be looking at the comments over the next couple of weeks and over the next month honestly i'll keep coming back to this episode in the comment section on the youtube channel and respond to as many of y'all's questions as possible but let us know what you thought of our top tens uh what you thought of our wide receiver evaluations if you're uh watching on youtube smash like and subscribe please smash like and uh get in on the conversation we this is our favorite episode to really go back and forth with a lot of fans on so we'll be doing that a lot more um even than you than we usually

do if you're audio only and you want to get in on the conversation as well twitter instagram are you on threads i'm on threads all right so i have a thread as well i have not sent out a thread is that what you call it i don't know dude you haven't posted either no i've been firing off memes i'm already you're already you're already firing off memes yeah i'm already firing off memes dude you are inevitable come fuck all right i don't even i don't even follow you because i really have it's not a thing it's not a thing it's not a you thing i don't follow i don't i don't follow yet either i'll remedy that right after this podcast but follow us on twitter instagram threads at tampa bay trey at connor j rogers we would love to hear from you guys uh we are sorry that this episode was a little bit late but hopefully the weight was worth it um connor anything else before we get out of here?

Oh, man. What are we doing next? O-line? Yeah, we're going offensive tackles and interior offensive line. Yeah, yeah. Big uglies. There's a... Big beautifuls.

This class is pretty loaded in that group, too, at the top. I know that. I haven't done enough outs. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone, for your patience. And hopefully this lived up to your hopes and dreams. I could already feel the comments seething about Jacob Cowling and Jalen McMillan, but

I will talk about fire off some comments, people. And we'll go back and forth. Oh, man. Again, like I said, if you go to our YouTube channel, if you go to this show, and if you comment on this video here, I want to. I want to talk about a lot more of these prospects with you guys, so start the conversation and we'll absolutely jump in on it.

We got offensive tackles and interior offensive linemen coming up next. That'll round out offense before we head to the defensive side of things for summer scouting. I'm Trevor Sikama. That's Connor Rogers. Thank you guys so much for watching the NFL Stock exchange podcast we'll see you next time.