2018 Draft Prospects: Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

Courtland Sutton, WR – SMU

It’s hard not to watch Sutton and think that he should be better than he is. Physically he has the tools of a receiver that would wind up in the top ten of the draft. He’s huge, standing 6-3 and weighing 218 pounds, and he put up insane numbers in the agility drills at the Combine. His forty wasn’t anything special, but at 4.54 it’s not like we’re talking about Laquon Treadwell here. He has the tools to be dominant, and he flashes them at times on the field, but he is too maddeningly inconsistent to justify a pick in the top half of the first round.

There are things on the field that Sutton does extremely well. As his numbers at the Combine showed he has insane agility for a receiver his size, and those quick cuts show up with good route running ability. He can get squeezed towards the sideline too easily, but as long as he keeps himself clear of there he is an above average route runner. He is dangerous after the catch as well, strong enough to break tackles and quick enough to make people miss in the open field.

A receiver of this size you would expect to dominate at the point of the catch, and it’s frustrating that Sutton doesn’t do so more often. Occasionally he can make ridiculous plays using his height and strength to snatch the ball out of the air, but far too often he seems passive about attacking the ball. His lack of speed makes it difficult for him to truly separate from defenders, and he has a habit of pushing off to try to generate that space. He catches too much with his chest, and will drop some passes that should be easy completions.

Winning the catch point is something that can be improved with coaching, but a lot of it is instinctive as well. And as much potential as Sutton has in that area, I’m not convinced he will be the player the team that drafts him expects. He’s a good receiver, and I think he’ll be a capable starter for years to come. I’m just not sure he’ll ever find himself among the best in the league.

Calvin Ridley, WR – Alabama

Ridley’s game begins with his speed. His first step off the line is explosive, and he only builds from there, consistently challenging defensive backs over the top. He ran well at the Combine with a 4.43 forty, but he plays even faster than that on the field. Without safety help over the top a cornerback has no choice but to back off, and Ridley’s ability to sell a route deep before coming to a sudden halt sets up a lot of easy completions on comebacks underneath.

The problem is that there’s not much else to Ridley’s game. Weighing only 189 pounds he is often overwhelmed physically, both coming off the line and at the point of the catch. He shows flashes of good work with his release, and he can get more development at the next level to make it more difficult for cornerbacks to press him. But if a cornerback does get his hands on Ridley’s chest, there really isn’t anything he can do to break free.

There are parts of Ridley’s game that are as frustrating and inconsistent as Sutton’s. He will occasionally go outside his frame to make a difficult catch, but just as often he misses out on balls if they aren’t perfectly thrown. He excelled running a small number of routes, but he wasn’t asked to run a full route tree, more work he will have to do to adjust to an NFL offense. And while he can be dangerous with the ball in his hands, he can also run himself into trouble and cost his offense crucial yards. There are more flaws here than most people seem to acknowledge, and there is a lot of risk that he won’t develop into a complete receiver. And even with his down the field speed, I’m not sure there’s enough upside to justify that risk until late in the first round.

James Washingon, WR – Oklahoma State

Washington is a bit of a one trick pony, but if there’s a trick that a wide receiver can build a career around, being an elite deep ball receiver is probably the best one out there. Washington underwhelmed at the Combine, performing below average in every single drill, but he plays a lot faster on the field than his 4.54 forty (the same time as Sutton, a player who looks significantly slower than Washington). He doesn’t explode off the line in the same way Ridley does, but he ramps up his speed well, and he can work his way free once he gets ten to twenty yards down the field.

Being a good deep ball receiver is about more than just speed, and Washington has the other traits down. He is a master at tracking the ball in the air, and he does a very good job using his body to shield defenders from being able to make a play. He gives himself space to work when running down the sideline, and he can twist his body to make difficult catches over either shoulder.

It’s possible for a receiver to make a career as a deep threat without really offering much else, and I think that’s the most likely course for Washington. In college he ran almost nothing but vertical routes, and he doesn’t have the sort of quickness or make sharp cuts that would help him develop his route running abilities. He doesn’t do much with the ball in his hands, and he rarely jumps to high point a ball. He really is just a deep receiver, and as good as he is down the field I don’t think such a limited player is worth a first round pick.

DJ Moore, WR - Maryland

Selecting Moore is selecting based on upside. It wouldn’t be shocking if a couple years from now he proves to be the best receiver in this class (considering this class, that wouldn’t be a great achievement), but right now he is far behind the three receivers I have listed above him. But he tore apart the Combine, running a 4.42 forty and performing better than the 80^th percentile in the broad jump, vertical jump, 20 yard shuttle, and 60 yard shuttle. And on the field he shows flashes of elite ability that could definitely develop into something dangerous.

Right now Moore is held back by a lot of little things. He’s a decent route runner, especially when he’s working straight up and down the field on either fades, comebacks, or double moves. But he gives away where he’s going before he reaches the break point, and NFL cornerbacks will eat his tendency keys alive. He needs to get a lot better at attacking the ball at the catch point rather than waiting and letting it come to him, and he lets too many balls hit his chest, leading to drops and allowing defenders to make a play.

But even with the things that hold him back, there are signs of the player he can be. In college he had a habit of making ridiculously athletic snags along the sideline, catches that didn’t count because his route didn’t give him enough room to work with. On some plays his catch radius looks much bigger than his 6-0 height would suggest, and on others he looks uncomfortable any time he has to reach outside his frame.

There is potential here, and there is plenty of reason to believe he’s capable of taking advantage of it. As much as the little things hold him back, there are other areas of the game where he shows good dedication to hard work. He is an excellent blocker, and he absorbs contact well going over the middle. He’s tough after the catch as well, willing to stick his head into tight areas to pick up extra yards. He has quite a ways to go, but he’s probably the only receiver in this class with the potential to become a number one threat. And for that reason I could maybe see him sneaking into the first round, even though I think his risk should knock him into the early second.

Dallas Goedert, TE – South Dakota State

Goedert is as traditional a tight end as we see coming out of college football these days. At South Dakota State he lined up all over the field and was asked to play a variety of roles, from stretching the defense down the field, to offering a safety blanket underneath, to blocking in the running game, even catching an occasional screen pass. His athleticism was dominant for the level he played at, but it won’t translate to the NFL, where he will likely have to find other ways to get open besides just outrunning defenders down the field.

Goedert has decent speed for a tight end, and he can make some difficult catches in traffic that you like to see from your tight ends. He needs to get a lot more consistent doing this, but the tools are there to develop with experience. He’s a capable blocker when asked to attack someone in the box in the running game, though he could do a better job latching on and sustaining so the defensive lineman doesn’t break away when the back comes by. But he usually gets good push along the edge, collapsing the defense and opening a wide lane for the running back.

Goedert will never be one of the best tight ends in the league, and for that reason I wouldn’t take him in the first round. He drops a few too many passes, and he doesn’t make the sort of accuracy erasing plays that the best tight ends consistently do. But as a plug and play contributor he’s the best at the position in this class, and I could see him holding down a starting role in an offense for five to ten years.

Mike Gesicki, TE/WR – Penn State

Gesicki’s Combine performance was the sort of thing that will be remembered for years to come. He scored better than the 95^th percentile among tight ends in the vertical jump, broad jump, 3 cone drill, 20 yard shuttle, and 60 yard shuttle. He also ran a 4.54 forty, all of this while standing 6-5 and weighing 247 pounds. He is a freak by every definition of the word, and likely the most athletic overall player in this draft class.

Now the problem: not all of this athleticism shows up on the field. His leaping ability is definitely there, and he will instantly be a threat in the NFL on jump ball targets. He also has sneaky agility when running his routes, seeming to lull defenses into a false sense of security and then breaking into an open patch of field. But he struggles to separate over the top, and he doesn’t do much after the catch, leaving him stuck fighting for contested catches or settling for ineffective dumpoffs over the middle. Physical defenders push him around on his routes, giving him trouble getting off the line and disrupting his breaks.

Gesicki wasn’t nearly as effective a receiver as his physical tools would suggest, but an even bigger concern for me was his utter inability to function as a blocker. I listed him above as both a receiver and a tight end because despite his official designation, I really cannot imagine him playing a traditional tight end role in the NFL. He isn’t just a bad blocker, he’s also an unwilling one, shying away from contact and at times even clogging up the lane he’s supposed to be opening. Any team that drafts him has to realize that they cannot just slide him into their normal tight end role, and I would be tempted to not even bother giving him that designation.

Gesicki is much better as an athlete than he is as a football player, and unlike Moore I’m not optimistic about his development. He definitely can have a role on an offense, but not as a feature piece. He’ll be useful on jump balls in the red zone and a reliable safety blanked in the middle of the field. But unless he suddenly translates his skills to the field in a way he never showed in college, he won’t be the game altering player his numbers suggest.

Christian Kirk, WR – Texas A&M

Of all the prospects I studied at every position there may not be a more sure thing than Kirk, and I mean that in both a positive and a negative light. He does enough little things well that I’m comfortable saying he’ll lock down a role in an NFL offense for years to come, but I don’t imagine he will ever be more than a role player. With his short stature, his poor performance at the Combine, and the overall inconsistency of his game, I think he projects as a number two receiver at best, and I wouldn’t consider taking him until the latter portion of the second round.

Kirk played mostly out of the slot in college, though I’m not sure if that’s the best use of him in the NFL. He doesn’t have the quick twitch ability I like to see out of slot receivers, and his most effective tool is his down the field speed. He runs a wide variety of routes and does a good job shielding off defenders with his body at the point of the catch, but on the whole he’s a poor route runner better suited to a spot where his speed will shift the structure of the defense.

Kirk’s agility was enough for him to be productive as a primary weapon in college, but he doesn’t have the ability to make NFL defenders miss in the open field. His strength will help him pick up a few yards after the catch, but he’s going to have to adjust his game to play at the next level. He has good instincts for getting open against a variety of defenses, and I think he can become an above average route runner if he learns how to sell his fakes better and make more precise cuts. But no matter what he is always going to be physically limited, and I just don’t see much upside in selecting him.

Mark Andrews, TE - Oklahoma

Andrews was a productive receiver in Oklahoma’s spread offense, but I really don’t see anything to suggest that he’ll be more than a rotational piece in the NFL. He is a subpar athlete with limited experience as an inline blocker, and there were very few areas in college where he really seemed to excel. His production was based more on the scheme he was in than anything he did himself, and I wouldn’t bother to draft him on either of the first two days of the draft.

Andrews did a decent enough job in college varying his pace and finding holes against a zone defense, giving his quarterback easy dumpoff opportunities. But he is more or less helpless when faced with man coverage. He doesn’t have the speed or quickness to separate, and his lack of athletic ability was reinforced by the Combine. He gets overwhelmed by physical defenders, and he rarely goes outside his frame to make difficult or contested catches.

As a blocker Andrews is merely average, capable of getting in people’s way in space but not of physically winning battles. He struggles to sustain contact, and he gets lost looking for people to block when he’s in the box. With a couple years of development he might be able to grow into a league average tight end. But that is his clear ceiling, and not worth any kind of real investment.

2018 Draft Prospects: Running Backs

The relationship between the running back position and the NFL is complicated. A few years ago the popular wisdom was that running backs weren’t worth a first round pick at all, that you could replicate the productivity of a star back with a platoon of midround picks. Yet over the past three years we have seen a reversal of this philosophy, with running backs going in the top ten in each of these drafts (including two last year, if you consider Christian McCaffrey a running back).

People are still skeptical about the value, but it’s hard not to fall in love with some of these prospects. There will almost certainly be another top ten selection this year, even though I don’t think there should be. This class is not as strong at the top as the ones that have come before, though I think there are a couple first round options worth considering on the table.

Sony Michel, Georgia

If you break this year’s running back class down into individual traits, I don’t think there is any area where I would say Michel is the best in the class. There are faster running backs, there are stronger running backs, there are more elusive running backs. There are backs with better vision, and there are backs better as receivers. But Michel stands at the top because he is the most complete back in this year’s draft, a player who can step in right away and contribute on any team in the league.

Michel is the sort of player who always seems to do the right thing on every play. He is light on his feet and can make some devastating cuts, but he never wastes time dancing. He is always working his way forward, finding seams through congested areas and slipping through. He has excellent vision and can cover a lot of ground with a single cut, allowing him to find and attack backside running lanes most backs would never even know about.

Michel is less polished in the passing game than he is as a runner, but he shows promise in that area as well. He can run some nice routes, and he is usually competent in pass protection. More work could turn him into a genuine three down back, though like most running backs he will likely be best used as part of a rotation. Only once over his final two years at Georgia did he eclipse twenty carries in a game, and I do have some concerns about how he would hold up if asked to plow into the line 250 times over the course of a season.

I don’t think Michel will ever be a true superstar as a running back. His speed is good but not game changing, and while he can fight forward for extra yards, he doesn’t really leave tacklers in his wake. He does a good job getting what’s there out of every play, but he doesn’t create yards in the way the best running backs do. In this class that’s enough to make him the top running back, but he isn’t a top twenty player like we’ve seen over the past few years.

Saquon Barkley, Penn State

Everybody knows about Barkley by this point. The combination of his highlight reels and his absurd performance at the Combine have made him the most hyped running back prospect in years, and when the actual draft rolls around he’s all but a lock for a top five selection. And when you watch him in the open field, there is no denying that he’s a one of a kind player. He’s a 233 pound back with breakaway speed and power to match his size, as well as nimble feet and elusiveness that should not be physically possible. He makes tacklers look foolish on a routine basis, and he turns ordinary seven yard gains into explosive plays.

Once he gets into open space Barkley is the best running back in the class. Unfortunately, what he does in tight areas is on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Barkley spends more time dancing in the backfield than any other running back I can remember watching, usually at the expense of the play that was called. He didn’t have particularly great blocking in front of him in college, but there were times that it was perfectly fine and he would still stop his feet in the backfield, ignoring the hole open in front of him in search of a big play. He very rarely would lower his head and plunge into a congested area, and at times it seemed as if he was almost afraid of trying to get skinny and fall forward for four or five yards.

There are certainly ways to use a prospect like Barkley, as we saw last year with a similar player in Alvin Kamara. Barkley’s hands are occasionally questionable, but he has experience running a variety of routes, both coming out of the backfield and split out as a wide receiver. He is electric on kick returns, and he can be useful on a couple creatively designed gadget plays a game.

But the question is, how much do you value a running back who needs special plays designed to hide his glaring weakness? He’s certainly not the top ten player people talk about him as—he’s not in the same class as Ezekiel Elliott or Todd Gurley—but where is he worth the risk? I’m a big believer in the value of athleticism and betting on player development at the next level, but I’m not sure if the same applies to running backs, a position with a notoriously short career lifespan. In the end I think his upside is still worthy of a first round pick, but I wouldn’t do it until the very end of the first night.

Ronald Jones, USC

Jones is the burner of this year’s class. Don’t bother to look up his forty time from the Combine, since he pulled up with a limp and killed his time. On the field he is an explosion waiting to happen, a flash of speed that can get into the second level and run away from everybody chasing him.

Speed is certainly the most dangerous weapon in Jones’s arsenal, but it’s not the only one. He can set up his bursts with aggressive sideways cuts that allow him to elude defenders and open up a seam downhill. His vision isn’t great, and he will miss some holes that are there (as well as running into some that aren’t), but when he does spot a lane on the backside, he has the physical tools necessary to reach and exploit it. To his credit he isn’t always trying to break a big play, and he is willing to lower his head and fall forward for a short but productive gain.

The biggest drawback with Jones is physicality. He weighs only 205 pounds, and he plays probably even smaller. He makes good use of his off hand to protect himself, but if his stiffarm doesn’t work there’s not much he can do to prevent a tackler from bringing him down. One arm is often enough to stop him in his tracks, and he hasn’t mastered the subtle last second cut to avoid taking contact head on and fall forward.

Speed is always a great weapon to have on offense, and there are lots of creative ways to take advantage of Jones’s skillset. He might be worth snagging at the very end of the first round, though I think he fits better in the second. I don’t think there’s much bust potential here, but I’m not sure there’s more upside than as one piece of a rotational backfield, and it’s hard to justify spending a first round pick on a player who will likely not see the field more than half the time.

Derrius Guice, LSU

Guice has a refreshingly simple style of playing football. He gets the ball in the backfield, and he runs forward until he hits something. Sometimes that something is a defensive lineman standing in the hole, other times it’s the wall in the back of the endzone. In either case, Guice is going to run full speed into whatever is in front of him and smash forward until something brings him to the ground.

There are obviously downsides to this style of play. Guice really doesn’t change direction, and when he tries it usually goes badly. He isn’t the sort of runner you would use with a zone blocking scheme, where he would have to read the play in front of him and make a cut where a hole presents itself. He needs to be told where to go before the play, and if the hole ends up more than a few feet away from where he aimed himself, he will have no choice but to stop his feet in the backfield and hope defenders can’t close in during the distressingly long time it works to get him to full speed again.

In the perfect situation Guice can be a wrecking ball powering a running game down the field with repeated five to ten yard carries. Tacklers bounce off him on a regular basis, and he can even build up some decent speed once he reaches the second level. But he doesn’t offer much in the passing game, and he greatly limits the sort of plays you can call with him in the backfield. Even with his physical gifts, I can’t justify spending a pick on him before the middle of the second round.

Kerryon Johnson, Auburn

I normally shy away from comparing prospects to players already in the NFL, but it is impossible to watch Johnson play and not think about Le’Veon Bell. Bell has an extremely unique style in the way he approaches the line, at times almost completely stopping his feet as he waits for a hole to open up, then exploding through the moment he sees a sliver of daylight. Johnson is one of the few players I’ve seen who truly emulates that style, and at the college level he was able to pull it off to great success.

Right now Bell is the best back in the NFL, but it’s fair to wonder whether Johnson can match his success as well as he does his style. On a purely physical level Johnson is nowhere near Bell, and he is well behind all the other backs I looked at in the draft. Coming out of college Bell outweighed Johnson by 17 pounds, and he put up an incredible time in the 3-cone drill, demonstrating the footwork and burst that became even more dangerous when he reached the NFL and slimmed down to his current weight. Johnson didn’t show nearly as strong a performance in the agility drills, and on the field he doesn’t appear to have the same one step acceleration that has made Bell so dangerous.

I’m really not sure what to make of Johnson. His vision is extraordinary, and if he can learn to harness it in a way that doesn’t leave him standing dead still in the backfield nearly as often he can be a difficult back to contain. His second level speed isn’t great, but he does a very good job maneuvering through tight spaces and falling forward through contact. I think he can develop into a productive back, but it is going to take a couple years, and unlike the players listed above him I can’t really envision enough upside to push him into the first two rounds.

Nick Chubb, Georgia

Chubb’s defining trait is his strength. He is a workout warrior, and his insane performances in the weight room translate to excellent power on the field. He almost always drags tacklers for an extra yard or two, and he’s not afraid to run headfirst into a pile and carry it as far as his legs can take him.

Chubb is at his best running with people draped over him, but he’s a lot less impressive when he’s on his own in open space. It takes him several steps to make any sort of change of direction, and approaching the line he has trouble seeing and reaching the hole if it isn’t straight in front of him. He gets up to top speed pretty quickly, but top speed for him isn’t all that fast, and he is frequently caught from behind when he reaches the second level. And unlike Guice who I discussed above, he has fairly poor balance and footwork when it comes to absorbing low hits, and a lot of his carries end with him tripped up by the ankles.

You would think a player like Chubb would be able to carve out a role as a short yardage back, but he was surprisingly ineffective in those situations in college. On a first and ten he’ll happily slam into a gap and plunge forward for a short gain, but when things are congested by a short yardage defense he seems to have trouble finding a hole to hit, leading to him stopping his feet in the backfield. The tools are there, and he only needs his vision to improve a little bit to be useful in these situations. But right now the thing he is best suited for is not something he is actually good at, and it’s hard to justify making that kind of player a pick in the first two days.