Top 10 wide receivers in the 2021 NFL Draft

Just missed the cut:

# 2021 NFL Draft Prospect: D’Wayne Eskridge (Western Michigan)

5’ 9”, 190 pounds; RS SR

Once a high school track standout and three-star recruit in 2016, Eskridge improved his numbers throughout his first three seasons, with 776 yards as a junior.

In 2019, he broke his collarbone three games in however and was forced to redshirt that season. Yet, only to take his game to another level last season, catching 33 passes for 768 yards and eight TDs, earning himself first-team All-MAC accolades, to go with being named the conference’s Special Teams Player of the Year, averaging 27.5 yards per kick return and taking one of them back to the house.

Eskridge shows great urgency and quickness off the line, with lightning-rapid footwork. He is o tough to put hands on at the snap, because he is really shifty and doesn’t presents DBs a lot of surface area to stab at him, by dipping away from contact. Eskridge has a really understanding for pacing and body-language on routes.

He can blow by corners on the outside and he is problem to match up with on slot fade routes, where he uses hesitation releases and then steps on the gas to gain a couple of steps on the trailing defender. That speed was only legitimized at the Western Michigan pro day, where he ran a 4.38 in the 40. He puts safeties on skates when he pushes vertically down the hashes and widens his steps before breaking one way.

Eskridge can snap off routes in such a violent fashion and send defenders flying, as they try to gather themselves. He looked almost impossible to cover on curl routes. And while it’s his suddenness & quick-twitch that really stand out, there is certain physicality to his game, attacking the chest of defenders and creating space through some subtle push-offs at the top of some routes.

D'Wayne Eskridge has the home-run ability to take a slant route 80 yards to the house on any given play. This guy is burning fast on routes down the field, but he hits another gear when the ball is in his hands. On the eight times he was targeted on slant routes in particular, he caught all eight for 295 yards and five TDs.

After the catch, he can flat-out run away from the defense, but also hesitate and slow down momentarily, before hitting the gas again and burning pursuit angles, as well as make defenders miss with some jukes. Eskridge really attacks that ball at full extension, at times when thrown too high, and holds on to it even when the throw leads him into contact or he has a defender right on his back.

Overall, he caught 34 of 48 targets last season, with almost a perfect passer rating when targeted on below 20 yards and still at 120.8 beyond that number. He averaged over 20 yards per catch his past two full seasons and his 16.4 yards per target in 2020 ranked first among all receivers in the NCAA.

His speed and ability to change up speeds also made him a highly dangerous kick-return man. While Eskridge obviously isn’t the biggest guy out there, he shows excellent effort as a blocker, putting defenders on their heels with the way he comes of the ball and keeps his legs driving.

Even though corners rarely actually get hands on him, Eskridge actually doesn’t hit the aiming points on hand-swipes very effectively and when they get inside his frame, he has a really tough time getting off those guys. More quick-footed DBs, who can actually mirror him as they hit the jam, will give him trouble at the next level.

While PFF claims he only dropped three passes this past season, I saw as many against Central Michigan alone, all due to lacking focus on securing the catch before becoming a runner. And he had some drop issues early on in his career as well.

Eskridge is such an electric play-maker, who can win vertically or after the catch. At his size, he will have to play a little more out of the slot and his route tree was fairly limited, but with how sudden he is off the line and what he showed at the Senior Bowl, where he was smoking Power-Five DBs, easily creating separating and arguably performing like the best receiver there, I think he’s a day two pick.

#2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Amon-Ra St. Brown (USC)

6’ 1”, 195 pounds; JR

The brother of Equanimeous (Green Bay Packers) and Osiris St. Brown (Stanford), Amon-Ra flirted with that top ten overall recruit status, coming from high school powerhouse Mater Dei. St. Brown caught 60 passes for 750 yards and three touchdowns his freshman season. Over the 19 games combined in the last two seasons, he has amassed 118 grabs for 1520 yards and 13 TDs, earning first-team All-Pac-12 honors in 2020.

This guy obviously has tremendous genes, as son of a famous athletic family, and he presents a highly impressive physique. The thing for me that always stood out for St. Brown, as soon as I first saw him play, were those unheard-of instincts for a young player.

He built a strong connection with fellow freshman QB J.T. Daniels, which continued when Kedon Slovis took over these last two seasons. St. Brown operated almost exclusively out of the slot, with only nine percent of the snaps spent out wide in 2019, before taking on more of the Michael Pittman role as the X last season, when he was outside for just over 70% of the time last season.

He is a real technician, showing a plan off the line and adjusting his routes to the defense. He can switch up gears as a route-runner and get DBs with some body leans. You see him force defenders to open their hips or widen them in off-coverage with bursts and then creates separation going underneath them, while not allowing the, to undercut the throw with the angles he takes.

St. Brown does a great job of dipping away and eluding defenders in zone, to not get hung up by contact and work his way open. He excels at finding open space and is actively looking to help out his quarterback, once the initial route is dead, especially on third downs. St. Brown displays smooth body adjustments to the ball in the air.

He shows no issues extending outside his frame for the ball or reaching down to his feet, but also displays excellent concentration tracking the ball over his shoulders and quickly pulling it, as the safety comes over that way, ready to blow him up. His hand-eye coordination and balance are really good. St. Brown immediately gets his hips turned upfield, to get to the marker or just the free yardage, rather than trying to dance around,

Brown is slippery after the catch, can make guys miss who pursue too hard and uses the off-arm well to swipe down the reach of would-be tacklers. St. Brown is an exceptional stalk-blocker and doesn’t mind putting hands on linebackers either, despite weighing in under 200 pounds. He has those quick feet to keep putting his body in position and walling off defenders, which was on display with the way he handled Notre Dame linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah in 2019.

If you take the 4.51 at his pro day and take the bump in numbers compared to laser-measurements into account, you probably get to the mid-to-high 4.5 that I would slot him in for. He won’t blow by safeties vertically or run away from guys after the catch necessarily. He certainly has some issues dealing with passes over his head when going over the middle.

While St. Brown played well on the outside last season, I don’t see him consistently winning downfield from that spot at the next level. We still have to see how he handles physicality off the line, as he spent only 148 snaps facing press in his career. And even though he is efficient after the catch, I certainly wouldn’t call him explosive in that regard, which is illustrated by just 4.0 yards of YAC per grab last season.

St. Brown just put up 20 reps on the bench press at slightly under 200 pounds at the USC pro day. He’s a strong, tough and highly competitive player, who already does a lot of stuff that young players still have to learn in the pros. While there is nothing that really stands out about him physically – other than the way he looks like without a shirt – and that I expect him to be a slot primarily, he should be one of the more rock-solid draft prospects for anybody taking him mid-to-late day two.

#2021 NFL Draft Prospect: Tutu Atwell (Louisville)

5’ 9”, 165 pounds; JR

A top-800 overall recruit as a quarterback, Atwell switched to wide receiver as soon as he arrived in Louisville. He already put up just over 400 yards as a freshman, but it was in year two that he put his name on the map, when he earned first-team All-ACC honors in 2019, catching 69 passes for 1272 yards and 11 touchdowns. Last season, despite opting out a couple of games early, he was a second-team all-conference selection, with 46 catches for 625 yards and eight scores.

In terms of pure deep threats, I don’t think anybody is more capable of running right by the entire defense than this guy, with his unmatched burst off the line and the blazing top-end speed. Playing cover-two against him in the slot, where a hook-defender has to carry him as the safety to that side widens and he goes up the seam is like a death-wish.

Safeties seem lost at times when he attacks vertically and they get matched up because it. Whether it’s breaking to the post and only gaining speed as he bends off that outside foot, just chopping his feet slightly and then taking the inside seam or often times giving a subtle jab to the inside and then taking off, to get several steps behind them.

While Malik Cunningham is a talented dual-threat quarterback, you see a lot of plays, where Tutu has clearly beat the man and the ball is badly underthrown, to where he has to slow down or even fight for the ball in the air. Overall, he recorded 25 career catches of 20+ air yards.

Atwell is a problem on those deep cross routes as number three from trips, especially when Louisville went formation into the boundary and he had all that space to work with, or taking advantage of two-high shells, by slowing/sitting those down in those situations. He caught the ball underneath quite a bit as well, where he fluidly turns upfield and can burn guys for taking direct angles to the sideline.

You see him force slot defenders to leverage to the sideline with his first couple of steps and then he has such quick feet to slide underneath and gain that inside position on them. When Atwell catches the ball on the run, he can hit another gear and zoom past pursuit defenders, while having that subtle shiftiness to get around them.

The Cardinals put the ball in his hands on a lot of speed sweeps and those shallow cross screens basically across the field, where your corners better really take care of keeping contain, because otherwise you’ll see this guy running down the sideline quickly.

The obvious concern for Atwell is that he will likely be the lightest player as soon as he enters the NFL. When defenders do get hands on him, he gets hung up with contact quite a bit, and then his catch-radius is so limited, that you can’t really expect anything in contested catch situations. He only spent 12.7 percent of his career snaps out wide and he faced press on just 18 total snaps last season, according to PFF. When you look at his catch numbers in 2020, Atwell had a passer rating of over 100 on passes under 10 and on 20+ yards each, but only 46.3 in that intermediate area.

So you just don’t see him winning on any routes, where he actually has to fight through contact. And at his miniscule size and frame, Atwell just won’t provide anything as a blocker. You saw him do an okay job initially, but then get pushed backwards and the Cardinals were looking for ways to hide him in that area, having him doing all those fakes and running off defenders.

This is another specialist and you may call him a one-trick pony – but that’s a pretty good trick. I don’t think Atwell will play 80+ percent of snaps for his future team, but he can really stretch the field for them, because safeties simply can’t play flat-footed when this guy is running downfield.

Moreover, you can produce chunk plays if you put the ball in his hands on the run. He will have to add 10 pounds though I believe, in order for teams not to worry of him literally breaking on an NFL field.

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The next names up:

Nico Collins (Michigan), Josh Palmer (Tennessee), Amari Rodgers & Cornell Powell (Clemson), Jaelon Darden (North Texas), Frank Darby (Arizona State), Austin Watkins Jr. (UAB), Marlon Williams (UCF), Seth Williams (Auburn), Desmond Fitzpatrick (Louisville) Cade Johnson (South Dakota State) & Ihmir Smith-Marsette (Iowa)

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