2023 Offensive Skill Position Prospects

I took it a little easy with draft prep this year, only looking at about two-thirds as many players as in past seasons. That means I’ve combined some of these writeups, smashing together players who play different positions even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense. Today that means I’m taking on all offensive skill position players. Which mostly means wide receivers, but there are a couple of curveballs thrown in near the bottom of the list.

Jaxon Smith-Njigba, WR, Ohio State

After a few consecutive years that have seen rookie wide receivers strong immediate impacts, the response to this class has been somewhat muted. Receiver is clearly a premier position in the league worthy of a selection at the top of the draft, but a lot of people have viewed this class as lacking an elite prospect worthy of that selection. Those people are absolutely wrong. Smith-Njigba is an elite receiver prospect, well worth a top ten selection.

The list of things that Smith-Njigba does well is long, but it starts from his elite short-area quickness. He put up insane numbers in his agility drills at the Combine, and not only does this show up on the field, it shows up in a very functional way in his route-running. He explodes out of every single one of his breaks, never giving defenders any hint of where he’s going until he’s already two or three yards separated from them. From there he has good hands, a wide catch radius, and impressive tools after the catch, even if these last two are a bit intermittent. But the most important thing is that almost immediately Smith-Njigba will be one of the best route-runners in the NFL, the sort of receiver a quarterback can trust to be always open.

Most of the critiques about Smith-Njigba are that he played primarily from the slot in college. And while plenty of receivers have made that transition jumping from one level to the next (the class of these being Justin Jefferson, a receiver Smith-Njigba has a lot of other similarities to), it’s still a cause for concern that we simply haven’t seen him do a lot of the stuff he will need to do at the next level. He only occasionally faced press coverage in college, and while his quickness and bend were almost always able to get him down the field untouched, when he did get contacted he didn’t have the play strength to stick through his route.

Even if the worst concerns about Smith-Njigba materialize, he has the fallback of being a lethal threat out of the slot. Outside of his quickness he doesn’t have any elite traits, and he’s simply good rather than great at every other part of playing receiver. His speed is good enough to keep defenders from recovering when he creates separation, but not enough to outrun people down the field. He’s good at contested catches, but doesn’t dominate at them. Some of these are things that he can work on, and if he does develop his game he can be a top ten receiver in the NFL. That’s a lot of upside, for someone whose worst-case scenario is a reliable number two.

 

Quentin Johnston, WR, TCU

In a year full of quick and fast receivers, Johnston literally stands above the rest. 6-3 and 208 pounds isn’t freakish size for an NFL wide receiver, but it is comfortably above average, and Johnston shows occasional signs of knowing how to use this size. He’s a developmental prospect who could completely bust or could turn into a true number one option, a gamble I am willing to take in the middle of the first round.

This isn't to say Johnston is completely raw. He wasn’t asked to do a lot as a route runner, but he shows signs of some ability in that area, making quick cuts when he needs and finding space against zones. Every now and then he can pull off a good release from the line, but there are also times that defenders sit in his hip pocket the entire way and give him no opportunity to make a catch. His top end speed is just okay, and most cornerbacks aren’t worried about him beating them over the top. This could change if he gets more aggressive about playing balls in the air, something that he did every now and then in college but will need to make his bread-and-butter in the NFL.

The one thing I am very confident will translate to the NFL is his ability after the catch. With the ball in his hands Johnston plays even bigger than his size, breaking tackles and dragging defenders for extra yards when he has a full head of steam. He’s also a lot quicker than most tacklers expect, sharply transitioning from receiver to runner and making a move before the defense even realizes he’s completed the catch. In the right system he can have an impact immediately making a couple of plays a game with the ball in his hands, while he develops the other parts of his game to round into a complete receiver.

 

Jordan Addison, WR, USC

Addison is another elite route-runner, one who will unfortunately always be held back by physical limitations. Smith-Njigba isn’t a big receiver, but he has two inches and 25 pounds on Addison, who will likely need to bulk up significantly in the NFL. Receivers with his profile have succeeded before, but usually these are burners who can threaten the defense by taking the top off of them. On tape Addison shows some ability to do this, but his 4.49 forty time—while not low enough to be a death sentence—is not what you’d hope for from someone his size.

Physically Addison tested as a Day 3 receiver, but on tape he looks like someone who should go in the middle of the first round. He doesn’t have the sheer lateral explosiveness of Smith-Njigba, but he has enough to make defenders look foolish, and he combines that with pinpoint precision on his routes. Coming off the line every route of his looks identical, until the moment he chooses to break it off to either the inside or the outside, giving the defender no chance to track him down. He combines this with a developed set of moves for releasing from the line and impressive first-step burst when he gets the ball in his hands.

I would bet on Addison’s tape winning out over his tools, and I’d still feel comfortable selecting him late in the first round. He probably doesn’t have what it takes to be a legitimate number one target, and there’s a risk that he simply won’t be able to compete against the faster, stronger, and smarter cornerbacks he is going to see in the NFL. But the very first thing a receiver has to do is to get open, and Addison has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to do that with ease.

 

Zay Flowers, WR, Boston College

Flowers is very similar stylistically to Addison, and if you wanted to flip these two based on Flowers’s somewhat better athletic testing, I wouldn’t argue too hard. He’s another small receiver who runs well but not game-breakingly so, and who thrives based on his ability to create separation with his routes. He isn’t as good as Addison at going outside the frame of his body or adjusting to off target throws, and despite the better testing he looks less explosive on the field. He will likely also have a somewhat tough transition to the NFL, but in the long-run will settle in as a very good second receiving option.

Flowers is one of the least flashy great route runners I’ve ever seen. He has good quickness, but he doesn’t win on his routes by making sharp breaks. He wins with subtlety and angles, bending his routes to move the defenders exactly where he wants them before attacking the space he’s opened. He’s absolutely lethal attacking the seams of a defense out of the slot, and when he has the angle he has enough speed to outrun a defender to the third level to create huge plays.

His route-running is so advanced that I have some concerns about how much he can grow at the next level. He can get better with his body control to make difficult catches, and bulk up to handle physical coverage and contested balls better. But at the end of the day he will always be 5-9, and he likely won’t develop the speed or explosiveness he needs to be worthy of a top twenty selection. But as with Addison, he has the most important part of playing receiver down, and that all but assures him a long and steady NFL career.

 

Bijan Robinson, RB, Texas

A running back is almost never worth a first-round pick. Time and time again teams have tried to convince themselves that this running back is different, or that they really just need that one impact piece to put them over the top. And time and time again, they’ve come away disappointed. The last team that actually came away happy from spending a first-round pick on a running back was probably Carolina when they selected Christian McCaffrey in 2017, and even that looks a little grim when you realize that Patrick Mahomes, Marshon Lattimore, Deshaun Watson, and Haason Reddick (all superstars at positions of major value) went in four of the next five selections.

This is all a long way of saying that Robinson is one of the two best running backs I’ve scouted in ten years of doing this, and I’m still not sure I can talk myself into putting him in the first round. But from a talent perspective, it’s impossible not to be awed watching him on the field. He is explosive hitting the hole, but also capable of remarkable patience, and with vision to find lanes other running backs would never know were there. He drives forward through contact and always seems to pick up three or four more yards than you think are there for him. His long speed is probably his weakest trait, but he still has the ability to break off occasional big runs, even if he isn’t a consistent home run hitter.

Of course, being a running back in the modern NFL is about more than just running the ball, and while Robinson wasn’t used often in these other aspects in college, he shows the ability to be an immediate three-down back in the NFL. He’s strong in pass protection and will only get better with more reps and fewer mental lapses. And as a receiver he shows remarkable ball skills, making difficult catches outside his frame and transitioning immediately from catcher to runner.

 All of that is a very long-winded way of saying I have no idea what to do with Robinson. He’s a tremendous player and will be one of the best running backs in the NFL from the moment he steps onto the field, but a top running back is still a luxury for most teams. Maybe a playoff team with an otherwise complete roster could justify snagging him at the end of the first round, and they might not even regret it, at least for the next couple years. The real trouble will come after four or five seasons of superstar play when he starts demanding a record-breaking contract, at which point the team that drafts him will have a hard time cutting bait.

 

Jalin Hyatt, WR, Tennessee

Hyatt is the receiver you go for if you want to just grab speed and figure the rest out later. He has the ability to stretch defenses simply by running in a straight line that the other receivers I studied do not, and that alone will give him a chance to compete for playing time in the NFL. Combine that with average size and impressive leaping ability, and he has the tools to be a very good receiver.

The problem with Hyatt is that we’ve seen him do basically nothing that he will be expected to do in the NFL. His offense at Tennessee was about as simple as it gets, and he consistently ran maybe four routes there, almost all vertical variants out of the slot. Every now and then he’d show some craftiness or explosiveness to get open across the middle on a post route, but just as often he’d throw in wildly unnecessary steps doing something simple like a comeback. Most of his production came running a wheel route out of the slot, taking advantage of easily-confused college defenses forced to defend extra space because of the wide hashes. This low-hanging fruit simply won’t be there in the NFL, and he is going to have to make an immediate adjustment.

The athletic ability is enough to get him into the second round, but the more I watch him, the less I see there. Drafting him is a complete gamble on the coaching staff being able to unlock abilities he was never asked to show at Tennessee. There’s a chance those abilities are there, and he just needs a little polishing to become an effective NFL wide receiver. But there’s also a chance that he needs to be built from the ground up, and that he will be a non-factor for his first couple years in the league.

 

Michael Mayer, TE, Notre Dame

Much like the running back position, basic competence at tight end is easy to find in the NFL. Unlike running backs though, elite tight ends can fundamentally shift the way a team plays offense. So if you think the player on the board is the next Travis Kelce or George Kittle or Darren Waller, the value they bring can be worth a first-round pick (though it’s worth pointing out that the players I just named were all taken in the third round or later, and recent first-round tight ends have not found much success).

Mayer’s production at Notre Dame was very impressive, with more than 800 yards in each of the past two seasons. And he certainly has some traits that will translate to the NFL. He has a big frame that he uses well to make difficult catches in a broad radius, though he could do a better job taking advantage of his size to attack the ball in the air. He’s a good, if not dominant, blocker who takes good angles in the running games and usually wins initial contact, while only sometimes losing as the play wears on. He’s a very smart and very technically advanced player as well, with good recognition of holes in zones and the route-running skills to make sharp breaks and settle into them. He is unafraid of contact and is more than willing to absorb hits after the catch, though again he struggles more than you’d expect when fighting for the ball while it’s in the air.

Mayer is a polished tight end who will settle into a solid role in an NFL offense. But as I said above, players that can do this are fairly easy to find in the league. And Mayer simply doesn’t have what it takes to go the extra level. He isn’t an elite athlete like Kelce or Waller, and even linebackers facing him in coverage can feel comfortable sitting on his routes without having to fear being beaten over the top. He isn’t a threat after the catch like Kittle either, or a dominant blocker.

Mayer thrived in college by being technically advanced in an offense designed to feed him the ball, but that will not be the case in the NFL. The best-case scenario for him is being a really annoying third weapon who can take advantage of open space in the middle of the field while more talented weapons work along the outside. And while that’s certainly nice to have for an offense, it isn’t worth more than a third round pick.