Free Agent Profile: WR Kenny Golladay
Should Washington pursuit the top WR on the free agent market?
Adding more pass catching weapons is clearly a priority for Washington this offseason. The team lacked receiving threats outside of Terry McLaurin and has shown a willingness to spend big on the receiver position. Last season the team took a big swing at Amari Cooper, who reportedly turned down more money from Washington to sign a five-year $100 million deal to stay in Dallas.
Allen Robinson was widely considered the top wide receiver set to become available this offseason, but the Bears opted to use the franchise tag on him. That leaves Kenny Golladay as the consensus best receiver on the market. So with a need at receiver and money to spend, should Washington target Golladay?
Skillset
Listed at 6-foot-4, 214 pounds, Golladay offers great size and it’s undoubtedly an important part of his skillset. Where he excels most is winning jump balls and contested catches over the top of defenders. He’s a receiver that separates vertically thanks to his size and leaping ability, as opposed to route running or speed and quickness.
This play is a perfect example of how much of a challenge Golladay can present to a cornerback in coverage. He’s assigned with a fade route down the sideline, but as quarterback Matthew Stafford sends the slot receiver in motion from right to left, he spots the slot corner following him across the field, indicating man coverage. Stafford then signals to Golladay with his left hand touching his right shoulder, indicating his intent to throw to the back shoulder. Stafford knows he has Golladay isolated one-on-one in man coverage and while Golladay might not run by the defender or beat him with his route running, he will win jump ball situations more often than not. Stafford puts the ball up in the air, allowing Golladay to use his size and strength to work over the top of the corner and make the grab.
Golladay’s ability to win jump balls and contested catches makes him a quarterback’s best friend. He offers a tremendous catch radius that allows the quarterback to miss his throws slightly and still complete passes.
On this play, Golladay aligns outside to the left and runs a deep dig route as part of a dagger concept. The route is solid with the corner missing his jam at the line of scrimmage, but as Stafford looks to throw, he feels pressure off his right side and falls away from the throw slightly. That causes the ball to be placed slightly high and just behind Golladay. However, Golladay makes the adjustment look incredibly easy, using his size and length to get high enough to reach the pass while also adjusting his body position to enable him to reach behind himself to snag the ball. He then holds onto the pass through contact to complete the catch.
The leaping ability, catch radius and body control allows Golladay to provide his quarterback with a significant margin for error on any ball thrown to him. A lot of receivers fail to adjust to throws that are slightly low or marginally behind, but Golladay is terrific at making those adjustments and correcting his quarterback. That’s an incredibly valuable skill to possess and one that makes Golladay a huge threat in the red zone, where the margins for error are that much tighter for quarterbacks.
Here, Golladay runs a bench route from a stacked set to the left. His route is halfway between a corner route to the back pylon of the end zone and an out route straight to the sideline. The outside cornerback takes the receiver in the flat, leaving Golladay with a leverage advantage against the inside defender. Stafford delivers the throw early, but his placement is off. Instead of guiding Golladay towards the sideline, his throw is behind Golladay, giving the defender an opportunity to undercut the throw and intercept it. Golladay makes it work though, slowing his momentum enough to come back to the ball and use his body to shield it from the defender trying to undercut the route. Golladay uses his long arms to ensure he gets his hands on the ball first and then pulls it away from the defender to not only save a potential interception, but complete the pass for a touchdown.
While Golladay isn’t a burner down the field, he is still a deep threat thanks to his ability to win contested catches over the top of defenders and his ability to track the ball in the air. He’s the perfect player to target on a hail mary or free play because there’s every chance he’ll be able to track the ball and grab it over the top of his defender.
On this play, the Lions catch the Jaguars jumping offsides, giving Stafford essentially a free play. He knows he can just launch it deep without any risk because any interception will be negated by the penalty, so he might as well take a shot. That’s exactly what he does. Golladay does a solid job outrunning the cornerback, but the safety is over the top the whole way. However, Golladay tracks the ball better than anyone else in the area, adjusting his path to the flight of the ball. He breaks back inside to attack the ball and grabs it over the top of the cornerback. It’s a free play and Golladay turned it into a 50-yard gain.
Similarly, Golladay is effective in off-script situations. In fact, they often work out better for him as quarterbacks under pressure and scrambling to extend the play will often throw the ball up and trust him to go get it.
This time, Golladay is assigned to run a deep hook. He attempts to release inside but the corner jumps inside to take that away from him. Golladay then gets stuck on the jam attempt from the corner as he tries to release before eventually getting into his route. With such an aggressive jam, Golladay gets a yard or two on the corner as he runs his route, but the corner stays on his inside hip and as soon as Golladay begins to break back to the ball, the corner sinks into his position and looks back for the ball, taking the route away completely. However, Golladay spots Stafford sitting in the pocket with extra time, looking for an option to throw to. Golladay decides to make himself an option, taking off back down the sideline. Stafford gives him an opportunity and Golladay makes another highlight reel catch through a strong hit from the deep safety.
Despite these positives, there are some negatives to Golladay’s game. While he’s fantastic separating vertically, he struggles to separate in any other way. He’s not a great route runner that can set up a defender by attacking leverage and he lacks the quick-twitch ability to work in and out of breaks at great speed to separate from coverage that way.
Here against the Falcons, Golladay aligns outside to the left, tasked with running a deep comeback. The route is a poor one with Golladay looking sluggish as he works to top speed, despite having a free release off the line of scrimmage. The cornerback in coverage never appears threatened and stays on top of the route the whole time. As Golladay gets to the top of his route, he takes multiple steps to slow his momentum enough to break outside. That makes the read for the corner very easy as he closes the small gap between them and is in position to undercut any potential throw, which never comes due to the lack of separation.
Separation for a receiver is a key skill. While Golladay offers a big catch radius and the ability to win contested catches with his leaping, some quarterbacks won’t think about throwing to a receiver if they can’t see him open and separated from the corner. That’s something Golladay struggles to do consistently.
On this third down play, Golladay runs a curl route designed to cut back towards the quarterback at the first down marker. To execute this route effectively, the receiver needs to accelerate off the line quickly to threaten the corner in coverage vertically before sharply cutting off his route in as few steps as possible. Golladay lacks an initial burst off the line and never threatens the corner vertically. He then takes too many steps to throttle down and break off his route and additionally, he stops his route rather than coming back to the ball.
All of that combined means the corner hardly moves and there’s almost no separation between Golladay and the corner. Stafford gets a bad snap and hurriedly throws the ball out to Golladay, trying to put the ball in a position where he can catch the ball away from the corner, but thanks to the poor route, the defender is able to get his hand in at the catch point and tip the pass, causing Golladay to drop it.
Fit in Washington
Golladay is clearly a talented receiver and will merit the big contract he’s likely to receive in free agency this week. But does he fit in Washington? Honestly, I’m torn. I think the verticality of the Air Coryell system that Washington uses would suit Golladay. This offense allows quarterbacks the freedom to work one-on-one matchups outside if the quarterback likes it and that’s where Golladay wins most. He’s flexible enough to play both X and Z receiver spots, like Terry McLaurin, which would allow Washington to choose their matchups better. He played more X in Detroit, but if Washington used him at the Z, they could give him some more free releases off the line to prevent him getting jammed as much, which would help with his separation.
My question about his fit comes with the quarterback situation.
One could argue that having a receiver capable of going up and stealing passes over the top of defenders would be a great outlet for lesser quarterbacks like Kyle Allen and Taylor Heinicke, especially as both appear willing to take their chances with aggressive opportunity balls down the sideline in one-on-one matchups. We’ve seen how Golladay can give his quarterback a bigger margin for error, which would be hugely beneficial for the quarterbacks Washington has on its roster right now.
However, it’s also perfectly reasonable to worry about quarterbacks like Allen and Heinicke, who perhaps aren’t as precise as other quarterbacks might be, throwing risky 50-50 balls regularly. A guy like Matthew Stafford knows when to throw out in front, when to throw high, when to work to the back shoulder. Can Allen and Heinicke be trusted with the same precision with the hope that Golladay will make it right more often than not or will it lead to too many risky throws and more turnovers? Will they throw with enough anticipation to get the ball to Golladay as he breaks, maximising the little separation he does create, or will they wait to see him break open, which he doesn’t do consistently?
I can see both sides of the argument. I personally would land more on the side of being concerned about Allen and Heinicke turning the ball over too much trying to throw the ball up to Golladay to make use of his skillset. For me, I think the risk factor of turnovers is too high with this current quarterback situation for Golladay to be the right fit in Washington. But I could definitely see how Washington could be convinced he would end up being a net positive because of how often he wins those contested catches and makes his quarterback right. So perhaps the team sees him as a better fit than I do.