2022 Wide Receiver Prospects

We are in a very interesting time for wide receivers. The position is more valuable now than it has ever been, and the top receivers in the league are well aware of this, making extraordinary contract demands that have led to a couple of the league’s most talented stars changing teams this offseason. At the same time, there is an opportunity to grab new stars on the cheap, as this is a decently strong year for receivers in the draft. It doesn’t have the top-level talent of last year, but there are multiple good options to be found in the second half of the first round.

 

Drake London, USC

Normally my receiver breakdown is the first draft post I publish each year, but I held off this year for one reason: I wanted to see London run the forty. He missed the final few games of the 2021 season with an ankle injury that also caused him to miss the Combine and USC’s Pro Day, which led to him scheduling his own workout for April 15^th. And then that day arrived, and he announced he was only going to be running drills and wouldn’t actually do any of the testing that had been anticipated.

So I still don’t have a forty time for London, and I will likely never get one. The forty can be overrated, but in this case it was something I was looking forward to, because speed is possibly the one area missing from London’s game. He has a decent first step off the ball, but he never really showed the long speed to separate over the top in college. Part of this was because he was never really asked to run deep, though that may also be because his coaching staff knew he couldn’t win this way. The uncertainty here is the biggest red flag I see for him, and the main reason I can’t call him worthy of going in the top ten.

Aside from the speed though, London has so much of what I like to see from a wide receiver prospect. First of all he’s huge, standing 6-4 and weighing 220 pounds. He uses every bit of this frame, as he’s the best receiver in this class at simply catching the football. He attacks the ball at every opportunity—whether leaping to go after a jump ball, fighting through contact for a contested catch, or simply extending his arms to snag the ball out of the air before a defender can arrive to make a hit. He will be a godsend to any quarterback he’s partnered with, either erasing inaccuracy with a massive catch radius or providing opportunities for precision on pinpoint back-shoulder throws.

London is more than just a big body. He didn’t have a lot of variety in his routes in college, but when he did mix things up he showed some impressive ability. He sells every fake with his whole body and make sharp cuts when he breaks off to either the inside or the outside. That same shiftiness translates to when he has the ball in his hands, where he moves far better than most receivers of his size. He can make people miss in space and absorb contact to avoid being brought down by the first defender.

The speed is still a concern. It didn’t present a problem much in college, but I do worry that NFL cornerbacks will be able to sit on his routes without fear of being beaten over the top. But his route-running and ability on contested catches should still allow him to be productive, even if he never generates the type of separation you expect to see from a truly elite receiver. Worst case scenario, he ends up as the next Allen Robinson. And if he has a little more juice in the tank than I realize, he has upside to be among the best in the league.

 

Treylon Burks, Arkansas

Burks has a little bit of everything you could want from a wide receiver. He has good size at 6-2 and 225, and he uses it to give himself a very impressive catch radius. He has excellent body control along the sidelines and really soft hands that absorb any ball that comes near them. He can win some very impressive contested catches, though he isn’t as consistent here as he probably should be, sometimes allowing opposing cornerbacks to play through him and get to the ball. But he also avoids some of these instances by being crafty when the ball is in the air, utilizing subtle pushoffs to make sure he has space to go up and snag the football.

Outside of body control there isn’t really one thing I can point to that Burks does extraordinarily well. He does a good job dodging press coverage at the line of scrimmage, but his acceleration as he gets into his route isn’t anything special. Once he gets moving he can build up speed to run away from people, but it isn’t the same sort of instant burst that some of these other receivers have. He isn’t super shifty on his routes, but he’s smart with them, knowing how to vary his pace to get cornerbacks off balance before making his move.

Burks is probably the safest receiver selection in this class. He’s going to be a starting-caliber receiver, and he’s likely going to be that from day one. If things break right, he might be able to become a reliable number one option. But I think he’s better suited as a very good number two, where he’s less likely to get matched up against cornerbacks who are athletically just a step above him. He’s definitely still worth a first-round selection, and I have him listed as the second-best receiver in this class, even if I’d be tempted to gamble on some of the higher-upside players below.

 

Jameson Williams, Alabama

Williams is another I wish I could have gotten a forty time on, but in his case only because I would have liked to have seen how low he could go. I don’t need an exact number to tell me he’s fast though. He has the sort of speed that messes with defenders’ heads, where every angle they take is poorly calibrated because they simply aren’t used to chasing someone this fast. This speed allows Williams to get easy separation on deep balls, and to take intermediate routes the distance by splitting through the seams in the secondary. He isn’t a super shifty runner, and anyone who can catch him can bring him down with ease, but the speed and instant acceleration he possesses still make you hold your breath every time he has the ball in his hands.

Williams is also the least polished of the six receivers I looked at. As a route runner he is capable of some extremely sharp cuts, but they never seem as effective as they should be. Defenders are able to get a read on what he’s planning a beat before most other receivers, and this anticipation erases the advantage his burst provides. He has some good instincts for where to find holes in coverage, but he also has a tendency to take plays off, assuming the ball isn’t coming his way.

The lack of polish, as well as the torn ACL that could cost him a chunk of his rookie season, are enough to knock Williams out of the top twenty for me. But I’m reasonably optimistic he’ll develop into a very dangerous receiver in a couple of years. He has most of the natural abilities needed to round out his game, such as good body control to go outside his frame and to make contested catches. He’s mostly helpless if a cornerback can get his hands on him, but he has enough going for him on his releases to prevent that from being an issue. He may not make the immediate impact of some of these other receivers, but if he keeps growing his route running and learns to harness his explosiveness, he could wind up being the best of all of them.

 

Chris Olave, Ohio State

Olave is in some ways the opposite of Burks, a receiver who is very good at a subset of things and not great at a handful of others. His role in the NFL will be somewhat limited because of this, as a pure boundary receiver who attacks the deeper parts of the field. He isn’t going to be useful coming out of the slot, and he’s not going to get much out of shorter routes that set him up to run after the catch. This knocks his value down into the later part of the first round, but the role he excels at is the one that most top receivers play, and I don’t think anyone should be scared about having to try to find a place for Olave on the field.

Olave is the premier deep threat in this year’s class. His speed isn’t quite at the level of Williams, but he makes up for it with otherworldly ball-tracking abilities. He regularly makes adjustments to balls in the air that ordinary receivers would struggle to pull in, with tremendous body control to make sure the ball always comes down softly in his hands. He struggles some when contacted by defenders at the point of the catch, but his ability to react late and contort his body means that defenders often don’t have an opportunity to even make a play on the ball.

The other elite part of Olave’s game is his route running. He doesn’t explode in and out of breaks like Williams, but he is a master of deception, working his way into a cornerback’s blind spot and breaking at the most opportune moment to get the defender off balance. This helps make up for a somewhat shaky catch radius, by giving him enough separation that his quarterback should have no trouble putting the ball on target. This sharp route-running combines with his body control along the sidelines to make him a threat in the red zone that you wouldn’t expect from someone of his slight frame and average height. He should transition smoothly from college to the NFL, provided his team doesn’t ask him to do more than he is capable of.

 

Garrett Wilson, Ohio State

Get the ball in Wilson’s hands, and you’re going to have a good time. On screens, on drag routes, taking handoffs in the backfield, when he has the ball in space, he is absolutely electric. He’s probably going to end up going higher than I think he should as teams try to duplicate the success San Francisco has had with Deebo Samuel, even though Wilson is a different type of runner, missing Samuel’s physicality but making up for it with extra quickness. He regularly makes tacklers look absolutely foolish in space, and he is going to put up highlights in bunches in the NFL.

Wilson has enough going for him before the catch to make him worth a selection in the first round. He isn’t as polished a route runner as his teammate Olave, but he has moments where his sharp change of direction ability leaves cornerbacks in the dust. He’s very good at releasing off the line of scrimmage to escape press coverage, which is good because he is rendered helpless by any sort of physicality. He’ll benefit in the NFL if he can have the opportunity to play in the slot or to start a lot of plays in motion so defensive backs never have a chance to touch him.

The one puzzling part of Wilson’s game is when he is used as a deep threat. He certainly has speed, as you see when he runs away from people with the ball in his hands or when you look at his 4.38 forty time. But this doesn’t often translate to separation on vertical routes against man coverage. He has a tendency to let himself get squeezed too far to the sideline, and even small bumps as he tries to pass opposing cornerbacks are enough to slow him down and keep him from pulling free over the top. It’s an area he can improve on in the NFL, and possibly a way for him to open up even more space underneath for him to do what he does best.

 

Jahan Dotson, Penn State

There is a clear drop-off from the top five receivers to Dotson, but he’s still a very good option if you’re looking for a receiver in the second round. Dotson is held back mostly by physical limitations. He’s the smallest of the receivers I looked at, and he doesn’t bring anything particularly special to the table in terms of speed or quickness. He gets pushed around by press coverage even more than the receivers above, at times being knocked back two full yards by a cornerback’s initial jam. He might have a future on the outside, but I think he’d be best working in the slot as a number two or number three receiver with a more talented teammate to take the defense’s attention away.

Where Dotson wins is by being smart and technically sound. He runs good routes, though his lack of explosive breaks means he doesn’t generate a ton of separation against man coverage. He’s at his best when he can recognize a zone and sit down in open space to let his quarterback find him. He does enough after the catch to keep defenses honest without ever really doing anything spectacular, usually just by finding a small seam and diving forward to get what’s there rather than trying to create something on his own.

The one thing that Dotson does that is really special is go outside his frame to make catches. He’s only 5-10 but he plays much larger, leaping and twisting to get to balls that even larger receivers would struggle to pull in. This makes him even more valuable as a safety blanket for a quarterback, who doesn’t have to worry about being too precise when the play breaks down and can trust that if he throws it somewhere in the vicinity of Dotson, it will be a catch. Dotson is the sort of receiver who will have a ten year career, be adored by the fans of whichever team he plays for, and generally ignored by the rest of the league, except when he drives a dagger in with some crucial third down conversion.