Thor Nystrom’s 2023 NFL Draft Primer: Wide Receivers

Here are my 2023 NFL Draft rankings and notes for wide receivers.

• Thor Nystrom’s 2023 NFL Draft Primer: Quarterbacks | Running Backs
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• 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Reports & Prospect Profiles

Mock NFL Drafts

• Matthew Freedman’s Mock Drafts (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0)
• Kent Weyrauch’s Mock Drafts (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 6.0)
• Matthew Jones’s Mock Drafts (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 6.0)
• Andrew Erickson’s Mock Drafts (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0)
• Mike Fanelli’s Mock Drafts w/ Trades (1.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 4.0)
• John Supowitz’s Mock Drafts (1.0 | 2.0)
• Russell Brown (1.0)

1. Quentin Johnston | TCU | 6026/208 | RAS: 8.68
Player comparison: Taller Brandon Aiyuk

Bio
If you’re wondering, “How the heck did Quentin Johnston wind up at TCU?” — you aren’t alone. He did not fall through the cracks. He was not one of those ubiquitous diamonds in the rough that former HC Gary Patterson found and polished.

No, Quentin Johnston was a consensus four-star recruit. A top-75 overall national prospect. He held offers from Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Baylor, and Virginia Tech. Johnston originally committed to the Longhorns before flipping to TCU late in the process.

Johnston grew up in Temple, Texas, about an hour north of Austin. Texas had a direct pipeline into Temple. DT Ta’Quon Graham was the most recent Temple star who had followed that pipeline to Austin — and then the NFL. Johnston defied the advice of his high school coach to spurn the Horns.

Johnston’s official visit to TCU changed everything. Johnston appreciated the close-knit, hometown feel of TCU’s campus. And Johnston valued Patterson’s sustained success in Fort Worth — there was something to that. Johnston wanted stability. Further, he wanted to be a catalyst for something bigger. Spurring the Horned Frog program to heights they had never achieved before.

Many prospects say these things. When they do, media transcribe the quotes, and print them without thought. Filler quotes. But Quentin Johnston saw something during that campus visit. He had a vision. A belief had formed. He did not care if people felt he was making a mistake.

So he flipped his commitment from Texas to TCU in December 2019. In so doing, he became the second-highest high school recruit to ever sign with Patterson during Patterson’s 20-year reign in Fort Worth. Johnston was the sort of physical specimen that Patterson rarely got access to at TCU.

Johnston was huge for a high school receiver. He had legitimate football skills, he was a track star, and he also excelled on the basketball court. Johnston’s signing was celebrated at TCU. He was the big man on campus. And he didn’t disappoint, starting hot. Johnston broke the Big 12’s true frosh record with 22.1 YPC, as the Frogs finished 6-4 during that COVID-shortened year.

But the next season, disaster struck. The defense fell apart, and the passing offense went into the tank as Max Duggan’s accuracy did in kind. TCU spiraled to 5-7. Patterson, a legend at the school, was forced out in an ugly public battle with the administration. There were private moments that season when even Quentin Johnston, a person with supreme belief in both his skill set and the way he sees things, wondered if he had made a mistake back in December 2019, when everything had seemed so clear to him.

TCU looked across town for Patterson’s successor, tabbing SMU HC Sonny Dykes, an Air Raid guru. Dykes promised to tick up TCU’s passing offense by working with TCU’s quarterbacks. Everyone already knew TCU had sleeping-giant potential in the receiver room.

You know what happened next. TCU was the surprise of the 2022 season. The HypnoToads went 13-2, reaching the national title game. In the College Football Playoff Semifinal win over Michigan, Johnston went off for a 6-163-1 line that won him Offensive Most Valuable Player honors. The Wolverines could not cover him.

TCU was mauled by Georgia in the national title game, as the Bulldogs entered the game with a clear mission of taking Johnston away. With RB Kendre Miller hobbled, TCU didn’t have the firepower to deal with Georgia’s defensive dominance.

No matter — Johnston’s vision had coalesced in a way nobody else could have seen coming. In three seasons on campus, he broke records, helped elevate a non-power program to the national championship, earned First-Team All-Big 12 honors twice, and was a Biletnikoff Semifinalist.

With all the goals he had set out to accomplish checked off, Johnston declared early for the NFL Draft in the days that followed the title game. He is in the running to be the first wide receiver off the board.

Strengths
Freaky physical specimen. At a shade under 6-foot-3/208, Johnston posted a 97th-percentile vertical and a 99th-percentile broad jump at the NFL Combine. Johnston deferred his other tests until TCU’s March 30 pro day event. The former high school track star is expected to shine in the 40-yard dash.

Johnston was ranked No. 23 on Bruce Feldman’s 2022 “Freaks” list. Feldman reported in that piece — published last August — that Johnston runs a confirmed 4.4 forty and back-squats 575 pounds. This is roughly the expectation for his time on March 30.

PrizePicks set Johnston’s forty time at 4.38 when it dropped NFL Combine props last month. By close, the market had bet that up to 4.44, but some of that fade action could have been speculative following early rumors that Johnston wouldn’t run (my colleague, Matthew Freedman, was the first to report that Johnston, in fact, would not run at the NFL Combine).

Johnston is a natural deep threat. It’s hard to account for Johnston’s suddenness off the snap. He’s a muscled-up long-strider who chews up serious grass when he gets going.

Deep safeties can’t cheat off their responsibility against Johnston. They can’t recover in time. It’s a mistake they don’t make twice.

There are very few humans who run a 4.4 and get up in the air with a 6-foot-3 guy with a 40.5-inch vertical and an 81.5-inch wingspan. Kobe Bryant had a 38-inch vertical. Quentin Johnston’s wingspan is 6-foot-8. Johnston had the fifth-longest arms of the 50 receivers at the Combine.

Johnston knows how to use his frame, he doesn’t get jarred by contact, and, when he gets up in the air, nobody can get higher than him. Johnston is a proven winner in jump-ball situations. In every single one of Johnston’s seasons on campus, he reeled in at least seven contested targets.

Johnston can also eat in the intermediate area, in part because corners simply must respect Johnston’s ability to pop the top. Johnston is the flame-thrower who can hit 100+ mph. If you’re not choked up, in the back of the batter’s box, you might not make contact. So corners sit back on their heels, anticipating the heater — and can then find themselves at a severe disadvantage when Johnston instead explodes inside off the snap for a slant.

In the NFL, working, for the first time, with a quick-processing quarterback with plus accuracy, Johnston’s production is sure to uptick from what we saw at TCU. Johnston will also benefit from playing with an improved supporting cast.

As we saw in the title game against Georgia, talented defenses with deep secondaries could take away Johnston by double-teaming and over-the-top bracketing him all game without fear of retribution from TCU’s ancillary skill players. Don’t you dare hold that against Quentin Johnston’s eval.

In the Vikings’ 2022 opener against the Packers, Justin Jefferson posted a 9-184-2 line on 11 targets against single coverage. Jefferson was double-teamed and over-the-top bracketed the rest of the season. Jefferson averaged 7.3 catches for 98.2 yards and 0.35 TDs per game the rest of the way. Same player. Same scheme. Context matters — and it absolutely affects production.

At the NFL level, if Quentin Johnston is playing alongside receivers who can consistently beat single coverage, as he can, it will not be possible to bracket him as defenses could in college.

Johnston adds gadget utility on end-arounds. He’s a fearless runner with arm-tackle-breaking muscle and one-cut shake. Between this area and quick-outs, you can steal a small handful of yards every game. If I’m right about the long-ball utility translating — which will force a percentage of off-coverage looks — you simply get the defense to tip its man-look hand through pre-snap motion and take its lunch money at least once a half.

Johnston is a true outside receiver. A true outside receiver who will legitimately scare NFL defenses deep and take profits over the middle of the field while gobbling up yards after the catch (YAC). Johnston ranked No. 11 in missed tackles forced and No. 6 in YAC per reception last year. This area of his game will also tick up when the accuracy and placement of the quarterback he’s working with do in kind.

Johnston has some justifiable nitpicks in his profile that we’ll delve into below — they’re fair, they need to be discussed, and they elevate his risk profile. I rank him WR1 anyway because I don’t think Johnston has gotten the benefit of the doubt for the circumstances he was in often enough. TCU QB Max Duggan left a metric ton of unrealized Johnston yards on the field the past few seasons.

Weaknesses
As stated above, Johnston didn’t run the 40 or do the agility drills at the NFL Combine. Nobody questions his speed. It’ll be interesting to see if Johnston ultimately does the agility drills at TCU’s March 30 pro day. And, if he does, what sorts of marks he gets.

Johnston’s north-south explosion and speed speak for themselves on the field. Johnston can make defenders miss — sometimes wildly. But he’s a no-nonsense type — when he evades, it’s via one cut, and he’s right back to hurtling upfield. He’s a high-cut long-strider, not a low-to-the-ground jitterbug.

I mentioned routes where Johnston wins above — his “fastballs”. TCU didn’t ask him to throw many more pitches than that, as it were. Johnston won’t be asked to run a full complement of routes in the NFL, either, and he’s never going to be excellent at sudden-breaking ones. But he remains unpolished in this area in general, having leaned on athleticism more than acumen to this point.

Johnston has a very frustrating habit that may or may not be able to be coached out of him. Above, in the strengths section, I spoke about “Good QJ” downfield. The times when he’s locked in. The times when he seemed impossible to defend downfield. When he got up in the air, extended his arms, high-pointed the ball, and came down with it. Beautiful stuff.

There’s another side. Too often, Johnston lets the ball descend too far into his frame. Not every time. That’s not it. He’s unique in this regard. He catches the ball as if there is no plan. There are times when he lets it get all the way into his body and he secures it underhanded. Other times, similar, but, overhanded.

But you can’t call him a “body-catcher”. There are simply too many instances of Johnston spearing the ball outside his frame. Or catching a bucket throw over his shoulder while running upfield. Or taking to the sky fully extended.

Oddly, it’s in these moments, in the air, free of thoughts, when he doesn’t have any issue fully extending and spearing clean. I noticed the bad habit cropped up more often when he had his feet set on the ground at the catch point.

My working theory? He’s thinking about his run after the catch. This theory also helps explain Johnston’s elevated level of “concentration drops”. Is it possible he was prioritizing his concentration on his run-after-the-catch plan over his technique at the catch point?

Johnston dropped eight balls last year for an 11.8% drop rate. We’d like to see his 10.2% career drop rate trend down into the single digits. It’s an all-time understatement to say that Quentin Johnston put himself into stickier situations than he needed to with his nonchalance at the catch point at TCU, giving defenders second chances to make a play on the ball, or rake it out of his arms at the last second.

Whether Johnston becomes an NFL star hinges on whether his NFL coaches can get him to attack the ball at the catch point consistently, and polish him off at the edges. He’s the only receiver in this class with a superstar skill set. I must rank him WR1. QJ isn’t a sure thing. But even his floor is a field-stretching NFL starter. His downfield trick is that neat.

2. Jaxon Smith-Njigba | Ohio State | 6005/196 | RAS: 8.34
Player comparison: Adam Thielen

Bio
In 2021, playing the slot inside Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson, Smith-Njigba had one of the most dominant singular seasons of any receiver of the past decade, setting a Big Ten record with 1,606 receiving yards. He saved the best for last, going thermonuclear in the Rose Bowl with 15 catches for 347 yards and three touchdowns.

Smith-Njigba entered 2022 as the consensus WR1 in the 2023 class. But Smith-Njigba suffered a hamstring injury early in the opener against Notre Dame that ended up wreaking havoc on his season. He missed the rest of that game, and then the following week.

Expected to miss Week 3 against Toledo, Ohio State oddly started him. Which seemingly was an indication that Smith-Njigba had returned to 100%. Not the case. After two catches for 33 yards, JSN re-aggravated the injury and was yanked.

We didn’t see him again for a month. Smith-Njigba returned on Oct. 22 against Iowa, playing 22 snaps. I was watching live. Smith-Njigba didn’t look right. He shouldn’t have been out there. Smith-Njigba had just one catch for seven yards for an ugly PFF game grade of 47.6. It was the last time we saw JSN in 2022. He finished the season with five catches for 43 yards on 42 routes.

Fans questioned whether Smith-Njigba was milking his recovery. Maybe he already had his eye on the NFL. ESPN analyst Todd McShay gave credence to that theory when he reported that NFL scouts believed Smith-Njigba was healthy and sitting out to protect his draft stock.

“I’ve got news for every prospect out there,” McShay said on an ESPN telecast. “NFL teams know. They know what you had for lunch last Thursday. They’re going to know whether you’re healthy or not. And if you’re healthy enough to play, you need to be out there with your teammates playing.”

Smith-Njigba’s brother, Pirates minor leaguer Canaan Smith-Njigba, responded to McShay on Twitter: “If he was healthy he would be playing.. like what?? We not protecting our ‘Draft stock’ they know who JSN is when healthy. You sorry [McShay] and so wrong to be on tv making these false claims.”

The debate raged on… Was JSN healthy? Mostly healthy? Injured? Was he rehabbing in good faith? No matter the case, whereas JSN entered the 2023 season as a clean, straightforward prospect, his lost campaign had introduced an undeniable element of mystery and doubt into his evaluation.

Smith-Njigba’s 2021 campaign was the best singular season of any receiver in the 2023 class. And his 3-cone and short shuttle times each blew away the field at this year’s NFL Combine — regardless of position. But he’s coming off an injury-riddled dud of a season, he has mediocre speed and burst, and he’s likely a slot receiver in the NFL, as he was at Ohio State.

So we’ll start here: Do you see the glass half full, or half empty?

Strengths
Slot maestro. So dang shifty. Joystick mover. His routes are a combination of jazz music and workout rap. The jazz comes in his understanding of his assignment.

Against man coverage, JSN sets nickels up to fail — by seeing the game from their perspective. He holds his cards close to the vest until the bitter end — his tells are false-flag decoys, and he is not to be trusted. The rap comes in the violence of his change of direction.

Up until that moment, JSN has gone to the trouble of covering his tracks. It’s so very difficult to know exactly when he’ll snap that break off, which direction he’ll go once he does, and the precision of the angle he’ll intersect. You can understand nickels being resentful of being stuck in man assignments against this guy.

With the ball in his hands, it’s the same sort of ethos. JSN is very difficult to square up because of his side-to-side movement, and he has great vision. His agility and vision get him into space more often than you associate players with his relatively meager speed and burst.

Quarterbacks love JSN. He’s not the most explosive receiver for reasons we’ll discuss below, but he’s an efficiency monster. He tosses the throwing window wide open in rhythm with the quarterback’s drop-back off those violent route breaks in the intermediate area, providing an easy look and uncontested completion.

Against zone coverage, JSN’s joystick agility isn’t needed quite as much — this is where you see his advanced understanding of the game. JSN deciphers coverage concepts quickly. He has an intuitive understanding of where defenders must be situated within that look, and by extension where he must go to make himself available to the quarterback.

JSN has natural ball skills. Strong hands. Picks it clean. Very fluid. Reels it in clean on the move and it’s like he’s on a treadmill, with no speed lost. His consistency in this area is upper-tier in this class, with a superb 5.2% career drop rate.

JSN will be one of the NFL’s best slot receivers in very short order. He will particularly create havoc on a team that has a true WR1 on the boundary that forces safeties back. At Ohio State, JSN played between Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. He enjoyed a bunch of intermediate space, and he feasted on it. The more intermediate space you give JSN, the more he’ll eat. It is that simple.

Weaknesses
Mediocre speed and acceleration. JSN’s route running and joystick agility got him into wide-open space many times in college. But, so often, we saw him get tracked down from behind. Not just by corners — college safeties and linebackers got him too. JSN isn’t running away from anyone in the NFL.

JSN elected not to run the forty at the NFL Combine, creating a lot of interest in Ohio State’s Pro Day on March 23. JSN ran a solid reported 4.48 forty, which ranked in the 79th percentile (note: Some scouts reportedly clocked JSN in the low-4.5s).

Questions about Smith-Njigba’s lack of twitch were confirmed with a 20th-percentile 1.65 10-yard split.

Smith-Njigba is a pure slot. I’m listing this as a weakness, because it means both that he isn’t versatile, and also that he won’t be a fit for all 32 teams. But I want to implore you not to overthink that for the reasons stated above.

I should also probably mention that JSN only went off during that one season in college — and that he was in ideal circumstances during that thermonuclear 2021 campaign. It’s just that JSN’s strengths and weaknesses are both very clearly delineated. His game will play at the next level.

I want to return to the last paragraph in strengths: “JSN will be one of the NFL’s best slot receivers in very short order. He will particularly create havoc on a team that has a true WR1 on the boundary that forces safeties back. At Ohio State, JSN played between Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. He enjoyed a bunch of intermediate space, and he feasted on it. The more intermediate space you give JSN, the more he’ll eat. It is that simple.”

I’ve come full circle on JSN. I loved him in 2021. I had a brief falling out in 2022. I think I see him with clear eyes now. Forget the boundary/slot value debate. He’s a slot. He’s a fabulous receiver. He’s super unique. He could be a top-20 overall NFL receiver someday soon. But even so, he’ll be at his best when he isn’t the WR1 on his own team. I believe he needs to play beside a WR1 who draws deep attention to open up the intermediate space JSN feasts on. I believe JSN is a Scottie Pippen-type. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

3. Zay Flowers | Boston College | 5092/182 | RAS: 8.29
Player comparison: T.Y. Hilton

Bio
Xavien “Zay” Flowers is known to be one of the feistiest, hardest-to-tackle players in this class. Did he have a choice in the matter? He was the fourth youngest of 14 children.

“Every day, we fought to be better at everything,” Flowers told The Undefeated. “When I was four, I would be in the front yard with full football pads on playing with my brothers. We would try to run each other over and juke each other out all the time.”

When Flowers was five, his mother died from a head injury. Flowers’ father, a truck driver for a medical device company, took over sole responsibility for caring for the 14 children. This is where little Zay Flowers learned his work ethic.

“On the weekends, which were his days off, he was still taking us to football games, getting up early to make us breakfast, washing clothes at the laundromat at 3 in the morning, and grocery shopping for all 14 of us. He taught me what hard work is,” Flowers said.

Flowers grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He showed skill in high school. But he was doubted because of his size, garnering only a three-star billing by recruiting services. Flowers signed with Boston College in the 2019 class.

Flowers didn’t have many offers from bluebloods, so, yes, in many ways he slipped through the cracks. But the lower-level P5 and entire G5 found him. Flowers received 27 FBS scholarship offers, including Nebraska, UNC, South Carolina, Kansas State, NC State, Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Maryland, and Purdue.

Flowers wore No. 4 as a homage to being the fourth-youngest child in his family. In 2020, as a sophomore, Flowers earned First-Team All-ACC honors. The next year, starting QB Phil Jurkovec got hurt, biting into Flowers’ production — but Flowers still earned Third-Team All-Conference.

The NIL offers poured in the next spring — Flowers’ experience with college football free agency. Flowers told ESPN that, in the days leading up to the May 1 portal deadline last year, he received multiple six-figure NIL offers to transfer out of Boston College. The largest cited offer was $600,000.

Zay Flowers was on the spot. Put yourself in his shoes. Do you stay loyal to your commitment? Or do you take the money? You could use it to help your family — 13 siblings, and, now, nearly 20 nieces and nephews. All these thoughts were swirling through Flowers’ head when he called his father, Willie Flowers. Willie recalls that Zay was excited when that call began. “I told him, like Bill Parcells said, ‘Don’t chase the cheese, it’s rat poison,'” Willie Flowers said.

That seemed to settle it. Rumors of Jordan Addison leaving Pitt and Zay Flowers leaving Boston College began at about the same time. Whereas Addison left for USC, the Flowers rumors were extinguished as quickly as they began — he announced he was staying at BC. “[I]t’s my word and [my father’s] word, and commitment is very important,” Zay said.

It was a noble thing to do. Something most wouldn’t have done. But unfortunately, Boston College’s situation went from bad to worse in 2022. Particularly on the offensive side of the ball. A rash of injuries hit the offensive line, and Jurkovec got hurt again. But Flowers, a marked man week in and week out, went berzerk again anyway. He posted a 78-1,077-12 receiving line to earn First-Team All-ACC and Third-Team AP All-American honors. Flowers was also named a semifinalist for the Biletnikoff Award. Flowers left school as Boston College’s career leader in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns.

Strengths
Kinetic, lightning-in-a-bottle movement. That goes for when he has the ball in his hands. It also goes for when he’s hunting on his route path. Due to Flowers’ size, some peg him as a slot-only at the next level. I do not.

Flowers played 65.9% of his snaps at Boston College on the outside. He absolutely has the game to be a boundary receiver in the NFL. He has two skills you don’t typically associate with smaller receivers. Flowers is an awesome field stretcher, and he’s extremely difficult to jam off the line despite his size because of his lightning-quick feet.

Press-man corners are playing with fire against Flowers. If you whiff, you’ve put yourself in a hole that you aren’t going to be able to dig yourself out of. Flowers is a problem in space, all things equal. If you’re at a disadvantage, your fate’s already been sealed.

Some comp Flowers to Kadarius Toney. This comp only works in terms of running with the ball.

In all other areas, it’s a disservice to Flowers. Over Toney’s last three years on campus, 1,045 of his yards came on throws within 19 yards of the line of scrimmage (73.1%), while 386 came on throws 20+ yards downfield (26.9%). Over those three seasons, Toney made four contested catches.

Flowers had 500 yards on throws 20+ yards downfield last year alone. Over the last three seasons, 1,430 of Flowers’ yards came on throws within 19 yards of the line of scrimmage (52.7%), while 1,285 came on receptions occurring 20+ yards downfield (47.3%). Flowers made 16 contested catches over those three years.

Flowers can run routes and win at all three levels. He’s a fabulous ball tracker downfield — atypically so for a player his size. He adjusts to balls well downfield, gets himself in the best position to make the play, and attacks the ball in the air.

Flowers was a truly unfair assignment for ACC cornerbacks one-on-one. The humiliation only began when he burned you. Once Flowers had the ball in his hands, the problems truly began. Last season, he finished top 20 in this class with 15 missed tackles forced.

His movement and body control — also a staple of his ball skills — are a riddle in space. Flowers has the vision of a high-end running back in this area, weaving through traffic as though looking down on the field from above.

Flowers shined despite being in a horrible college situation. Last season was particularly bad. Down the stretch, Boston College was only starting one offensive lineman who remained in the same position he broke camp in. Due to a rash of injuries, converted defensive linemen and a walk-on were starting on the line.

QB1 Phil Jurkovec’s last two seasons were wrecked by injuries. In 2021, noodle-armed QB2 Dennis Grosel attempted nearly 100 more passes than Jurkovec. In 2022, new QB2 Emmett Morehead attempted 55 fewer passes than Jurkovec.

Defenses were not concerned about B.C.’s quarterback play, they had no issues blowing up B.C.’s makeshift offensive line, and B.C. had no running game to disincentivize defenses from doubling Flowers. Last year, B.C.’s leading rusher finished with 403 yards on 3.1 YPC.

Some question whether Flowers is a first-round talent. I don’t think there would be any questions about that had he played at a school like Alabama or Tennessee.

Weaknesses
The tape measurement stuff. Flowers lacks size, length, and play strength.

Trying to tackle Flowers is like trying to catch a chicken in the coup — but once you get your hands on him, it’s night-night. Standard durability concerns always apply to players this size.

Flowers gives effort as a blocker, and he was actually solidly above average in this phase the past two seasons in terms of his PFF grading. His NFL projection in this area is a different story. Flowers’ effort will win him a certain percentage of fights — he’s not going to have the muscle and length for the others.

Speaking of Flowers’ lack of length, he was able to overcome it to win downfield with ball tracking, body control, and a my-ball attitude. He had 24 career drops for an 11% career drop rate. That’s not as big a deal contextually within his college situation. But in the NFL, against bigger, better athletes, when his margin for error shrinks, can he win in the same kinds of ways?

4. Jordan Addison | USC | 5111/173 | RAS: 5.93
Player comparison: Tyler Lockett

Extremely advanced route runner. Predominantly a slot during the 2020-2021 season at Pitt in one scheme, shifted to the boundary and learned Lincoln Riley’s playbook last offseason. Quarterbacks love throwing to Addison.

His game is very straightforward. He beats you with movement, route running, and deception. He isn’t big, he isn’t a burner (4.49), and he’s only a decent athlete. He’s a watch-maker type. Meticulous.

Lots of moving parts going on once Addison gets into his route. You appreciate how… unforced he is. It’s his tempo, his plan, all of the time. He controls his body like he’s playing himself in a video game.

Nobody in this class is more clever with the little things. Starts a third-quarter route exactly how he won a first-quarter route against the same defender — and then snaps the route break off at the same location of the field in the opposite direction to send the defender flying the wrong way. It’s hilarious.

There are limitations in the profile that will prevent Addison from becoming an NFL superstar. He’s small, skinny, and lacks play strength. His build may lead to nagging injuries — like the ones he had last year, for instance. Addison can be jarred off the line, he doesn’t break many tackles with muscle, and he’s not a good blocker.

Addison needs to shake corners free on his routes, because he struggles in traffic. Last year, his first on the boundary, he went just 2-for-9 in contested circumstances. Addison’s value is also a bit dinged by his mediocre hands. He posted a career 9.5% drop rate.

I see Addison as a strong WR2 at the next level.

5. Marvin Mims | Oklahoma | 5112/183 | RAS: 9.4
Player comparison: Santonio Holmes

To this day, the all-time Texas prep leader in receiving yards. Mims flashed immediately at Oklahoma, posting a ridiculous 88.8 PFF grade as a true freshman. Greatness was expected. But over the last two years, his PFF grades fell under 76.0 each time. Mims’ draft evaluation hinges on whether you think that’s his fault, or Oklahoma’s fault.

So let’s explore the last two years of Sooners football. In 2021, QB Spencer Rattler imploded and was eventually benched for true freshman Caleb Williams, and HC Lincoln Riley had one foot out the door. In 2022, following Riley’s departure for USC (Williams left with him), the Sooners were a directionless 6-7 mess under new HC Brent Venables.

This is what I like about Marvin Mims: He was a star immediately for a guy who will go down as one of the best offensive coaches in college football history, he can win from anywhere in the alignment (45.5% slot, 53.8% outside in college), and he is a deep-ball assassin despite his size. Mims’ highlight reel of catches might be the best in this entire class. His body control is incredible, and his hands are ultra-reliable.

Get this: Despite having 36% or more of his usage coming on throws 20+ yards downfield all three seasons of his career — for a bloated career 16.7 aDOT — Mims dropped only seven balls on 177 career targets (5.4% drop rate).

Mims also averaged 19.0 yards per punt return in Norman. He projects as a plus return man at the next level. The risk in his profile comes from his small frame and lack of length in conjunction with his longball-heavy game in college.

In the NFL, Mims will be asked to win in the short and intermediate areas far more often than he was asked to do so at Oklahoma — how will he do with that? Agility does not seem to be a concern. He posted a 73rd-percentile 3-cone at the NFL Combine, and he can very clearly boogie on the field.

But Mims very clearly lacks play strength. And at Oklahoma, he got free releases plenty. In the NFL, he will be tested in this regard. Corners will play up and try to get their hands on him. Can Mims consistently release clean? Further, will being jarred along the route always be a fly in the ointment of his route-running machinations against bigger, stronger NFL corners?

I don’t believe Marvin Mims will be an NFL star. But it would be a surprise if he isn’t a starter for a long time. He’s too athletic and too skilled — he’s succeeded for too long — not to be.

6. Cedric Tillman | Tennessee | 6030/213 | RAS: 8.67
Player comparison: Courtland Sutton

The son of a former NFL receiver and brother of a former FBS receiver, and the product of a powerhouse high school (Bishop Gorman) and blueblood college (Tennessee), Cedric Tillman is being slept on this draft process. Let’s talk about why.

Tillman’s detractors say he’s a fifth-year entrant who was only good for a stretch of his fourth-year junior season. This is a statement that requires context. Between 2018-2020, Tillman’s first three years at Tennessee, the Volunteers were in the last three years of the doomed Jeremy Pruitt era.

The offense was rudderless, helmed by the much-maligned QB Jarrett Guarantano. While the quarterback play and play-calling left much to be desired, the Vols happened to be stocked in skill talent.

In those three years, the receiver rooms included Marquez Callaway, Jauan Jennings, Josh Palmer, and Velus Jones Jr. You can forgive Tillman for getting stuck behind four NFL receivers out of high school (and maybe even give Tillman credit for sticking it out?).

In 2021, the Josh Heupel era began. Heupel realized what he had in Tillman. During the meat of the schedule that year, Cedric Tillman dominated elite competition week in and week out. He continued this into the 2022 season — until he suffered a high-ankle sprain in Week 3.

If you combine the last seven games of 2021 with the first two of 2022 — nine games total — Tillman posted a 63-1,101-11 receiving line. That’s an average of seven catches for 122 yards and more than one TD per game.

Here’s who Tennessee played in those nine games: (2021) Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Purdue, Kentucky, and (2022) Pittsburgh. Strong competition. And Tillman wasn’t hiding. He was the clear WR1 alpha on the boundary.

Tillman battled back from that high-ankle sprain to have seven catches on eight targets against Georgia’s national-title-winning defense late in the 2022 season. Then he had nine catches against a South Carolina squad that finished the season on a heater.

Of his 101 catches between 2021-2022, 19 were contested. Tillman was insanely efficient on his force-fed targets, dropping a mere 4.4% of catchable career targets. During his breakout 2021 campaign, he posted a mind-melting 155.8 QB rating on his 86 targets.

Tillman is big, strong, long, springy, sure-handed, and north-south explosive. He comes with adequate speed for his size (4.54). He is a proven downfield home-run hitter against the best competition college football had to offer over the past two years.

He’s not the most elusive receiver, with mediocre agility. But his route breaks are crisper than he’s given credit for because of his attention to footwork and his plus body control. What I appreciate about Tillman is he knows his limitations, he works around them, and he’s tailored a game around maximizing his strengths.

I see a prototypical NFL WR2 — the downfield utility speaks for itself and will translate due to Tillman’s body control and ball skills in traffic, and he’ll provide more move-the-chains utility than he’s getting credit for. Will be had on a discount in April simply because of last year’s circumstantial high-ankle sprain.

7. Josh Downs | North Carolina | 5091/171 | RAS: 8.99
Player comparison: Sterling Shepard

Uber-productive slot with 195 receptions over the past two seasons. Competitive, feisty presence. Wins with movement. Super quick off the blocks with 4.4 wheels on the back end.

Downs wins your trust as a route runner. Consistent and reliable. Has a real knack for timing his break up with the quarterback’s drop. Downs has choppy feet, and the acceleration/deceleration of a SeaDoo. This gets him in and out of breaks lickity-split.

Downs was extremely reliable last year, dropping only three catchable balls on 116 targets. He’s also assuaged any concern about winning at his size in congested quarters, converting 13-of-18 contested-catch opportunities last year.

Downs is a specific kind of prospect, but he’s not a perfect one. He’s tiny, he’s confined to the slot (89% out of the slot), you can jam him off the line, and, for a slot, playing on the cardboard edges of the box, he’s a matador blocker. High-floor, moderate-ceiling prospect.

8. Nathaniel Dell | Houston | 5083/163 | RAS: 5.82
Player comparison: Hollywood Brown

Pint-sized slot with lightning-in-a-bottle movement skills. Dell’s separation skills made him an unfair assignment in Senior Bowl practices. NFL teams will try to bully Dell off the line. If they can’t, they’re in a world of trouble.

Dell comes to the NFL as a proven killer at every sector of the collegiate field. Similar in size to Tutu Atwell, Dell is not the same player. At Louisville, Atwell was a two-trick pony. Atwell either caught a screen and tried to create, or he was running a fly route. Defenses weren’t scared of Atwell in the intermediate sector.

Dell’s game has much more nuance. He is not as straight-line fast, but he is more skilled, and the objectively superior route runner. In 2021, Dell posted a PFF receiving grade of 90+ at all four receiving depths.

Last season, the only one he failed to do so was behind the line of scrimmage. In two of Atwell’s three seasons on campus, he posted a 90+ grade at only one of four depths. The other season, his best, he did it in three of four.

Dell lit up the AAC for 228 receptions over the past three years. His jumbo production at Houston was no fluke. In two games against P5 teams this past season as a marked man on Houston’s offense, Dell posted a combined 13-196-1 receiving line.

In 2020, in two games against P5 teams and a third against Cincinnati’s CFP team that featured Sauce Gardner, Coby Bryant, and Bryan Cook in the secondary, Dell posted a cumulative 26-382-2 receiving line.

In summary, across those five games, Dell had 39 catches for 582 yards and three TDs. All five went to a bowl. All came in with one goal: Stop Tank Dell. They couldn’t.

NFL defensive backs will try to bully Dell. On reps they don’t have success, good luck.

9. Michael Wilson | Stanford | 6015/216 | RAS: 9.55
Player comparison: Braylon Edwards

Injury-prone former four-star recruit who flashed whenever he was on the field. Team leader who was voted captain. Premium mix of size, strength, movement, body control, and hands. But struggled to stay on the field due to injuries.

For a receiver his size, Wilson’s movement really stands out in person — multiple times at the Senior Bowl, Wilson elicited “ahhs” from the Senior Bowl crowd by shaking a smaller cornerback out of a violent route break.

This was a staple of Wilson’s Stanford film. Wilson flings throwing windows wide open for his quarterbacks in this way. Here’s an athleticism stat about Michael Wilson that’ll shock you: Of all the players at the Senior Bowl, regardless of position, only two finished top 15 in top-end speed and top five in deceleration. Trey Palmer (expected) and Michael Wilson (not so much). But this helps explain Wilson’s utter disregard for human life in route breaks.

It’s rare to see a receiver his size decelerate with that force and precision — and that’s not a throwaway receiver trait. That’s the guaranteed-to-shake-them trait. More proof of concept on that front. Wilson posted a 9.37 RAS. His profile is very quick and explosive, with a 97th-percentile 10-yard split and 84th-percentile vertical. But he’s a modest long-strider who ran a 4.58.

I love Wilson’s play style and physicality. He wants to bury cornerbacks when he’s run blocking. On special teams units, he’s hunting. We don’t want him to ever throttle down, but he does need to learn how to protect his body. Wilson only played in 14 games over the last three seasons due to a variety of nagging injuries.

My other nitpicks about Wilson may or may not be endemic. For instance, I thought his ball skills were better in Mobile than on tape. Then again, so much of Wilson’s career was shaking off rust, trying to kick an injury, and trying to reacclimate himself back in with teammates — is it possible his timing was a little off in some game reps?

Are a few of his drops (8.2% career drop rate) explained by this? He could also stand to work on his release package, which at this time is rather basic. He has the footwork and upper-body strength to not have to worry about press coverage, but he had reps in the Pac-12 where inferior corners were able to disrupt his route path early because he didn’t appear to have a plan out of the chute.

This type of thing is especially important for Wilson because, for all the beneath-the-surface gifts we’ve pointed out, he happens to have sub-20th-percentile arm length (31 inches), allowing aggressive press corners to get into his chest off the snap if he doesn’t beat them with his footwork and/or strength.

10. Jonathan Mingo | Mississippi | 6013/226 | RAS: 9.87
Player comparison: Chase Claypool

Mingo soared up my board along with everybody else’s following a sensational pre-draft process.

He never equaled the sum of his parts at Ole Miss. But to be fair, his quarterback last year, Jaxson Dart, struggled to acclimate into the system and struggled accuracy and processing issues all season. This had the effect of leaving a ton of unrealized Mingo yards on the field.

Mingo started to open my eyes at the Senior Bowl. That week, I wrote: “Mingo’s route-running chops have been better than advertised. He’s a big, strapping receiver who is impossible to bump off his route plan. Mingo consistently wins the hand-fighting battle downfield, which can sometimes free him in space.”

I was surprised to see that technical aspect of his game up-close — but I still didn’t believe he was going to test well. Boy was I wrong. At 220 pounds, Mingo ran a 4.46, with broad and vertical jumps that both checked in 94th-percentile-or-better when adjusted for size.

Most of his collegiate experience comes on the outside, but some team may see him as a bully-ball slot guy. Last year, the Rebels gave Mingo 261 snaps in the slot.

With better quarterback play at the next level, Mingo’s game could take a jump. He profiles as a No. 2 receiver at the next level with the versatility to win inside or outside.

11. A.T. Perry | Wake Forest | 6033/195 | RAS: 9.24
Player comparison: DeVante Parker

Prolific collegiate receiver in a wonky offense. Perry is a true outside receiver with proven downfield chops and an enormous catch radius to go up and get it.

Among my top-20 receivers in this class, the average wingspan is a shade under 76″. Perry’s wingspan beats that by almost five inches, checking in at 6-foot-9. Perry and Quentin Johnston are the only two receivers amongst that top-20 with wingspans over 80″.

The concerns you have with Perry are that he labors to quickly change directions — his 46th-percentile short shuttle was easily his worth test — and is only so-so in contested situations, which he’ll see more of in the NFL. Perry also needs to cut his career 10.4% drop rate into the single-digits.

But he proved the concept with 152 catches, 2,396 yards and 26 TD the past two seasons, and ended up testing well overall this process, including a 4.47 forty.

He may need a year to acclimate into an NFL system, polish off his routes, and add a few more branches to that route tree. But I think he’ll develop into a No. 2 NFL possession receiver who can stretch the field when isolated against shorter corners who don’t have over-the-top help behind them.

12. Jalin Hyatt | Tennessee | 6001/176 | RAS: 9.46
Player comparison: John Ross

Hyatt has been bandied-about as a top-40 prospect all process. Using that kind of pick on him would concern me.

He’s a one-trick pony and a one-year wonder. His trick is speed, and he ran a tenth of a second slower at the NFL Combine than his prop line at sports books.

His production came last year, and was mostly isolated to five games. Games where the competition was bad and/or Cedric Tillman was injured.

Those games: FCS Tennessee-Martin, Akron, Mizzou, Kentucky, and running by cement-footed, coverage-allergic Alabama SS DeMarcco Hellams on free releases for one game.

Hyatt was never pressed off the line in college. And most of his wins off those free releases came deep after he had toasted a mediocre athlete that HC Josh Heupel had schemed him into isolation with.

I have to rank Hyatt here due to his explosiveness and the ability to win downfield that he showed last year. But the NFL isn’t going to give him running head starts to run by guys with 4.6 speed.

He’s going to have to learn how to win downfield in contested situations, and his raw route-running game is going to have to be fleshed out to force defenders to respect him in the intermediate area.

13. Rashee Rice | SMU | 6005/204 | RAS: 9.68
Player comparison: Nate Burleson

The Mustangs peppered Rice with 352 targets the last four seasons — nearly 20% came 20-plus yards downfield. He has experience both in the slot and the outside — 69.0% of his college snaps came on the boundary.

Rice is not the shiftiest. As he himself stated by omission during his draft process by skipping the 3-cone. To his credit, Rice knows his limitations. He isn’t going to shake anyone out of a route break, and he isn’t going to try.

A staple of his game is the north-south explosion to get downtown (92nd- and 98th-percentile jumps). Rice’s long arms come in handy in the sky. He’s like a basketball rebounder in that contact through the back doesn’t affect his concentration.

He has a deceptively large catch radius once there. Rice’s wingspan at the NFL Combine was a shade over 6-foot-4. Rice converted 32-of-66 (48.5%) contested-catch opportunities in college.

He didn’t run a full route tree at SMU. But I like how he changes foot patterns and tempos to keep defenders off his scent. He has the starter kit to develop into a solid NFL WR2.

Best of the rest…

14. Tyler Scott | Cincinnati | 5095/177 | RAS: 8.3
Player comparison: Corey Coleman

15. Puka Nacua | BYU | 6012/206 | RAS: 5.18
Player comparison: Discount Deebo

16. Charlie Jones | Purdue | 5112/175 | RAS: 8.54

Player comparison: Hunter Renfrow

17. Jayden Reed | Michigan State | 5106/191 | RAS: 6.15
Player comparison: Russell Gage

18. Andrei Iosivas | Princeton | 6027/212 | 9.92

Player comparison: Breshad Perriman

19. Trey Palmer | Nebraska | 6000/193 | RAS: N/A
Player comparison: Jalen Reagor

20. Dontayvion Wicks | Virginia | 6015/212 | RAS: 7.59
Player comparison: Van Jefferson

21. Kayshon Boutte | LSU | 5111/195 | RAS: 4.77
Player comparison: Robert Woods

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