DCOrange

Yeah, I think with Williams it really boils down to if you think you can develop him and if you have the appetite to do it for a guy that will almost surely be exclusively out of the slot. He doesn't have much experience at WR but he was pretty productive especially considering the team around him and he does have some athletic gifts. He's my WR16 or 17 so not exactly who I'm hoping we get.

I revisited Jalen McMillan in light of the fairly promising metrics and some hype from some of the Bills Twitter folks that are excited we met with him at the combine. Also watched film on Isaiah Williams and Jacob Cowing. I'm sticking to my guns on McMillan; I don't see anything particularly interesting personally. He seems like just a guy out there to me. I didn't hate his film the way I did Tez Walker and Xavier Worthy, but I have to give those guys higher grades because they at least have some tantalizing physical tools. McMillan just doesn't seem to offer anything exciting to me. I ended up with a late 4th round grade on Isaiah Williams' film. He mostly lines up in the slot and he's pretty decent there. Ran some nice crossers, nice job of changing tempos in his routes to keep DBs off balance and he seems to be a guy that has the foot quickness and general athleticism to be a good separator but just doesn't sell his routes well enough for me. One thing I do like about him; he was a QB in high school and viewed as a 5 star athlete prospect. All the blue bloods wanted him on their teams but wanted him to play WR. He ended up going to Illinois for the opportunity to play QB and he stuck it out as a QB for a couple years. His first year playing WR, he led the team in receiving (granted it was only 500-600 yards). So while his breakout age is going to be a little high (but not alarmingly high), he's also just now learning the position and is pretty productive already. Combine the note about him having the athleticism to separate but not selling his routes well enough and the fact that he's new to the position, maybe there's some real hope he figures it out in the next few years and you end up with a steal on Day 3 as a result. He shined in the metrics too; on metrics alone he was graded as a late 1st round pick, bringing his overall grade up to a late 3rd. Purely on the metrics, Jacob Cowing earned a late 2nd round grade, so I was fairly excited to check him out on film. I came away very impressed. At a listed 5'11" and 175 lbs, he's probably looking at a slot role and to be fair, that is where he played most of his snaps in college (around 70% of his snaps were in the slot). Having said that, he showed a good ability to beat press coverage despite his small build. PFF charted him as the best in the entire class in terms of getting open and I can definitely see where that could be the case. He does a great job of getting on top of the DB's toes and then getting them leaning or committing the wrong direction before he cuts away for easy separation. He particularly likes to use a hesitation move both at the LOS and at the route stem to freeze the DB and then accelerate away. I can very easily picture him thriving with the option routes we like to run on offense here. Beyond being tough to cover in man coverage, he shows a nice ability to squat down in the soft spots against zone defenses. The last positive for me, he has a strong motor. Unlike some of this year's class (both Texas WRs are probably the worst with this), Cowing plays hard even when he's not the primary read/even when he's the decoy. Arizona would run fake screens where the "blocker" slips downfield for a deep shot and Cowing did a nice job of selling himself as the screen guy. He runs hard when he's motioned across the formation for fake jet sweeps, he runs hard and leverages his DB to help open up parts of the field for his teammates, etc. All in all, I ended up with a late 1st round grade on his film, and factoring in the late 2nd round metrics grade, he ends up with a combined grade of a late 1st (barely). It seems like he's viewed as more of a 3rd rounder around the league, so between that and his likely role in the slot, I probably wouldn't take him at 28 personally, but he's definitely someone I would consider anywhere in the 2nd round. I have him as my WR7 in terms of film grade and WR5 in terms of combined grade.

And at least as far as short term impact goes, he almost literally didn't run routes in college so there would be a significant learning curve even if a team thinks he has the physical tools to play outside (which as you said, he probably doesn't). I think around 45% of his targets in his college career were screen passes and around 70-80% were targets under 9 yards down the field.

The full quote includes something along the lines of "I think flat earthers make some good points too"

I think as evidenced by the fact that he skipped the previous weigh in, there was fear he was going to weigh in significantly heavier than this lol

Dude had to skip the Senior Bowl weigh in to make sure he could get down to 366 lol. I fear for his health.

I feel like he may have misspoke? He literally talks about how there's a ton of depth at WR beyond the first round and then says it's a bad draft if you don't take one in the first?

This is true, but he barely played 2 seasons ago (17 targets that year). He played a lot more in 2021 when he had 6 drops on 52 targets. I do think in general he has good hands though and he showed the ability to extend away from his body, reaching behind, etc. to pluck the ball out of the air. If your main priority is limiting drops, he's one of the best options in the class (I may lean towards Ricky Pearsall for best hands in the class). I don't really think Mitchell is someone I would take if I'm looking for someone that will win 50/50 balls though (though he certainly has the height and length to potentially become good at it).

I haven't watched his Adonai Mitchell deep dive, but I think someone here said he took that back in regards to Mitchell, which makes sense.

https://archive.ph/ is your friend

He made approximately $10 million in total over the last two years, meaning $5 million per year. I would bet anything that number is being rounded up so he probably made about half in college what he'll be making in the NFL on his rookie contract. I think between the NIL, the Covid eligibility stuff, and being able to transfer without sitting out, the college landscape has changed pretty dramatically. You used to see a good amount of kids that would just opt for the NFL Draft because they knew they were being replaced on their college team and didn't want to ride the bench or transfer and sit out a year. Now that kids can transfer and start immediately elsewhere, there aren't as many kids being "forced" to declare for the draft.

I revisited Adonai Mitchell and Brian Thomas today as well. I don't think anything in particular jumped out to make me change my grade on either. So I remain with a mid-1st grade on Thomas' film and factoring in metrics, a mid-2nd round grade. I remain with a late-2nd grade on Mitchell's film and factoring in metrics, he gets moved down to an early 4th. I would tend to stick with the film grades for where I would draft these guys; the metrics is more just for fun to see if it ends up being more accurate that way. One thing in particular I looked for with Mitchell was the way he catches the ball after Steve Smith said that he body catches it 90% of the time. I did not see that at all personally. I do think Mitchell struggles in contested/high pointing situations more than you'd think given his build, but he's absolutely a hands catcher and his hands are quite good.

I don't think Thomas is as good in contested catch situations as DK was, but he is quite good at it statistically and there's plenty of it on film as well. I think he's pretty good after the catch too; he's not as stiff a runner as DK was but obviously not as strong either. He's not like Adonai Mitchell and Harrison Jr. and guys like that where you can be pretty certain they're going down once they come up against tacklers but he's also not Malik Nabers. I wouldn't consider either of those areas to be weaknesses. I would say contested catches are more of an issue with Franklin, Mitchell, and Worthy if we're comparing guys that may be considered at 28. Franklin and Worthy are better after the catch, though I think Worthy is worse than you'd expect him to be given his physical gifts. Edit: I also think Thomas can probably run more routes than he showed in college. There's no reason he shouldn't be dynamic on crossers and slants; I kinda think a part of why you didn't see much of it is because Jaylen Daniels struggles on those throws. Daniels was mostly a curl route/vertical route thrower and as a result, that's the vast majority of what Thomas got to do. Not to mention Nabers is understandably better in terms of acceleration so when they did try to target the middle of the field, it was generally Nabers getting to do it. This is obviously me projecting a bit though.

I decided to revisit a few WRs (and am planning to take a look at Isaiah Williams and Jacob Cowing, but they both seem to be slot guys) as more All 22 film was added to the catalog. Only through Xavier Worthy so far. I really wanted to take another look at him because I was a ton lower than consensus on him. On my revisit, I do think I was probably a bit harsh/not giving him enough credit for his speed and deceleration. While I think he needs refinement, he is physically capable of running a more varied route tree than most of the class. Having said that, I still think between how physically weak he is, how susceptible he is to being pushed around, and how poor his effort level is, there's a lot of red flags. I also don't think he's as dynamic after the catch as I hoped given his athleticism; his contact balance and elusiveness don't stand out. Lastly, if Buffalo wants to replace Gabe with another WR that can be on the field at all times due to his blocking ability, Worthy simply shouldn't be a consideration. He's more likely to help the defense tackle the RB than to actually deter them in any way. As I said, I do think I shortchanged the physical traits. I've bumped his film grade up to a late 4th round grade, which combined with his metrics results in an early 4th round grade. While this is definitely an improvement, it feels like he'll still be drafted far earlier than I'd personally be comfortable with.

Guys that played at least 40% of their snaps out wide this season and ranked above average in terms of both avoided tackle rate and YAC per reception (listed from highest avoided tackle rate to lowest): Malik Nabers (also met these thresholds in 2022) Ladd McConkey (also met these thresholds in 2022) Jamari Thrash (also met these thresholds in 2022) Zakhari Franklin (using 2022 numbers because he barely played this season) Keon Coleman Xavier Worthy Troy Franklin Would also throw out that Johnny Wilson hit these thresholds in 2022 but not in 2023.

Agreed. Replacing Gabe is easily a higher priority.

I am still kinda lukewarm on Shakir personally. I think he's a valuable WR for sure and there's plenty of potential for him to become a huge factor, but for now, he's more of a zone specialist. The difference in his production vs. man coverage compared to zone was pretty huge this year. I think someone like Roman Wilson could potentially be a significant upgrade against man coverage. I am admittedly quite low on Worthy, but I would also mention that he played most of his snaps out wide in college. I think he projects as someone that can play the slot but is probably more of a Z WR right now.

I think the NFL should either do something like this to make the kickoff game an actual big deal, or just get rid of kickoffs entirely and have each team start at the 25 (which is essentially what is currently happening in the league). As currently constructed, kickoffs are just a waste of time. The XFL kickoff is cool.

Brian Thomas is one of those guys where I'm kinda hoping he has a disappointing combine so that he slides a little further down the draft board. The ones where I think it's actually an important part of the evaluation would be Legette, Coleman, Mitchell, and McConkey. Like if Coleman were to run a 4.6 (which I do not think he will), he's no longer in consideration in the first round for me. Likewise with McConkey and Mitchell. If Legette can hit the 4.3's or god forbid the 4.2's, I might be a little more interested than I currently am, but my hesitance with him is pretty well known.

Legette was a WR throughout high school until his senior season when the QB got hurt.

Re: the discussion of age and more specifically breakout age, Xavier Legette's breakout age is probably going to end up being 22.6 based on my own math (but PlayerProfiler.com is really the one place that everyone cites for this and they don't have a breakout age for him listed yet). Players that were drafted in the first 3 rounds with a breakout age of 22.0 or older (roughly dating back to 2007 where PlayerProfiler starts not having some of the players in the database): Player Year Pick BO Age Anthony Gonzalez 2007 32 22.0 Greg Jennings 2006 52 22.0 Devin Duvernay 2020 92 22.0 Terrance Williams 2013 74 22.0 Harry Douglas 2008 84 22.0 Van Jefferson 2020 57 22.1 TJ Graham 2012 69 22.1 Danny Gray 2022 105 22.4 Andre Caldwell 2008 97 22.4 Kelvin Benjamin 2014 28 22.6 Jalen Hurd 2019 67 22.6 ArDarius Stewart 2017 79 22.7 Javon Walker 2002 20 22.9 Velus Jones 2022 71 24.3 Henry Ruggs 2020 12 Never Mecole Hardman 2019 56 Never Devin Hester 2006 57 Never Tre Tucker 2023 100 Never Terry McLaurin 2019 76 Never Marquise Goodwin 2013 78 Never It's not exactly a list that inspires confidence. I believe as breakout ages are posted by PlayerProfiler, this will apply to Ricky Pearsall as well who I expect to be around a 22.0.

I've mentioned a few times throughout this thread already...I feel like @GunnerBill and I generally see prospects the same way but Legette is one that we've really diverged on. I know he likes Legette a lot. I don't hate him or anything but I see him as more of a 3rd rounder than a 1st personally. I tend to shy away from older prospects and prospects that took a long time to figure it out in college and Legette checks both of those boxes. Among the 19 WR prospects I've scouted so far this year (which is basically all of the top guys in the class with a couple exceptions), Legette is the 2nd oldest as he's already 23 years old. If you expand it out to all of the guys that PFF considers to be draftable, his age doesn't look as bad because a lot of the late round guys this year are very old, but point being, he's older than I like in an early round pick. On top of that, he almost literally did not do anything at the college level until his 5th season; this is a big no no for me and historically speaking, it's very rare to find a WR with a breakout age as high as Legette's that went on to have any success in the NFL. To me, Legette is a bit of a project in that he's big, strong, and fast but is pretty unpolished right now as a player and I'm just not super interested in that mold of prospect when they're relatively very old. It feels like a very low percentage play and I'd just rather let another team take that chance personally. Having said all that... Even I agree with this lol

I admittedly have not watched him at all, but one thing that feels extremely alarming to me is that even playing at a low competition level, his target rate is extremely low. Feels weird that someone that wasn't even getting targets amongst relatively lackluster peers would be expected to take off in the NFL.

If we can get one of Thomas, Franklin, and Coleman at 28, I'd probably opt for the first option. I think option #2 could definitely be the better play though but there's obviously risk in terms of who will actually be available. Like if you use PFF's big board for example (just because it's one of the deeper big boards out there at this point), you have something like this: Option A: Rd 1: Thomas, Franklin, Coleman (they also have McConkey and Mitchell up there but I would pass at 28 personally) Rd 5: Tahj Washington, Isaiah Williams, Luke McCaffrey Option B: Rd 2: Roman Wilson, Ja'Lynn Polk, Ricky Pearsall, Xavier Legette (and a few others that aren't as notable to me) Rd 4: Javon Baker, Cornelius Johnson, Malik Washington Option B runs a lot more risk of getting caught either not getting an X WR or reaching for one before you want to take them.

Legette wasn't in his initial top 50 either (from a month ago). The one huge move is that Tez Walker was #26 in his initial top 50 and is no longer in there at all.