NFL Draft Profile: WR Garrett Wilson

Breaking down Ohio State WR Garrett Wilson

Yesterday I began breaking down some of the wide receiver prospects in the draft starting with Ohio State’s Chris Olave. Today, I’m moving on to Olave’s teammate Garrett Wilson. Wilson is often the higher rated of the two by many draft analysts, some even have Wilson as the top receiver in the draft. Most have him at least in the top three of the group, so clearly there’s a strong consensus he’s a talented receiver. So what’s his game all about? Let's take a closer look.

The first things that stand out about Wilson when watching him are his speed and physicality. He has the speed to run away from defenders in the open field, but also the elusiveness to evade tackles as well as the strength and balance to break through tackles. This makes him a home run threat every time the ball is in his hands.

This play sees Wilson run a simple shallow crossing route. The defense drops off into zone coverage and Wilson crosses the field underneath them. Ohio State design a solid play with the receivers on the left side of the field working deeper routes to drag the defenders on that side of the field further back, creating space for Wilson on his shallow cross. When Wilson catches the ball at the hashmark of the 28 yard-line, it’s a pretty simple underneath throw for the quarterback, but with the space created, Wilson secures the catch and then turns on the jets. He turns the corner and bursts down the sideline taking it all the way into the end zone for a touchdown before a defender can even get close enough to touch him.

That’s game-changing speed, but that’s not all his game is based on. As I mentioned earlier, he’s also a very physical receiver that will happily initiate contact and break tackles to maximize his yards after the catch.

Here we see Wilson in the slot to the left running a simple five-yard under route. As he breaks away from the slot defender, a linebacker drops off from faking a blitz look at the line of scrimmage into Wilson’s path. Wilson doesn’t hesitate and still manages to secure the pass while sidestepping the defender. After that, he immediately looks to get vertical and charges at the deep safety. By attacking the safety, he’s able to give him a quick juke to evade his tackle attempt and pick up even more yards after the catch before the rest of the defense can catch up to bring him down. 

This type of explosiveness makes Wilson an ideal candidate for the “gadgety” plays like jet sweeps and bubble screens designed to get the ball in his hands quickly and let him go to work. His home run ability makes him a huge threat on those plays.

This is a simple bubble screen for Wilson off an RPO look from Ohio State. The quarterback opts to throw the bubble screen and Wilson gets the ball in the flat. His fellow receiver does a nice job blocking the initial defender, allowing Wilson to turn the corner. From there, he’s able to put a move on the other defender in the open field to make him miss before bursting down the sideline. 

Wilson’s playmaking ability turned a simple bubble screen into a 15-yard gain. That kind of ability is something every NFL team can make use of in various ways. He’s perfect for the jet sweep game too. 

Everyone in the NFL has incorporated the jet sweeps and jet sweep fakes into their offense now because of how it impacts run fits for the linebackers and other second level defenders. Having Wilson’s explosiveness on those jet sweeps makes that threat even more of an issue for the defense to worry about. We can see on this play Wilson takes the carry on the jet sweep to the left. The defense doesn’t pay him the appropriate respect and focuses on the fake run to the right. That enables Ohio State to get blockers out in front of Wilson to secure the edge. Wilson beats the unblocked defensive end and then turns the corner, running between his blockers into the open field. Like we’ve seen previously, he then turns on the jets and explodes down the field turning the jet sweep into a 50-yard touchdown run.

The explosiveness is a huge part of Wilson’s game and it’s clear he could add a lot to any offense on those plays designed to get him the ball as quickly as possible. But to label him as simply a gadget player would be false. He also has good receiving skills that are still developing and can be a legitimate threat in a conventional passing game too. 

On this play, Wilson aligns to the left of the formation but in a tight split. He’s tasked with running a deeper out route against a corner playing with outside leverage. Wilson bursts up the field off the snap, doing his best to convince the corner he’s working vertically. He closes the gap between them and forces the corner to open his hips in order to turn and run deep with him. As soon as the corner opens his hips, Wilson makes his cut. It’s a very sharp cut too, a lot of receivers tend to round out their cuts and gain depth while breaking off the route, which is easier to cover. But Wilson is able to stick his foot in the ground and cut sharply towards the sideline without any wasted movement. That allows him to maximize the separation between himself and the corner, leaving him wide open down the sideline. 

His route running can still improve with some small details, but he still shows some nice moves to help him separate from defenders.

Here, Wilson lines up as the outside receiver to the left of the formation and runs a curl route. The corner lines up showing press coverage, but bails at the snap with his hips turned inside as he keeps his eyes on the quarterback. Wilson recognizes this coverage and smartly adjusts his route to work into the corner’s blind spot. He widens his route and uses his speed to close the gap and threaten vertically. With the corner feeling threatened vertically, he abandons playing with vision on the quarterback and is forced to turn and run to try and keep up with Wilson. That’s when Wilson looks to break off his route back to the quarterback. But also notice at the top of the route, Wilson uses a throw-by technique where he extends his inside hand to shove the defender further forwards as he breaks off. Some might see this as a push off, but it’s a legitimate move that many good receivers do at the NFL level to help create separation, which is exactly what it does here.

Wilson will have to be careful with how and when he uses such a move at the next level, because it might be called for offensive pass interference if used incorrectly. But if he can time it with a defender trying to use his hands to stay attached to the route, it’s a move that can be legitimately argued as hand fighting to clear a defender from holding him. It’s a savvy move to have in the arsenal of weaponry as a receiver and shows that Wilson is more than just a gadget player.

You may have also noticed at the end of that play how Wilson was able to climb up and reach a high throw. That’s another layer to Wilson’s game. He has great ball skills and can leap above defenders while tracking the ball to make catches over the top of them. Any highlight reel of Wilson will show a number of circus catches over the top of defenders, but I’ll just focus on one in particular as an example.

 

Down in the red zone, Ohio State liked to try and isolate Wilson against a single defender as much as possible for his jump ball ability. That’s precisely what we see here, with almost the entire offense bunched up on the left hashmark and just Wilson split out to the right side. Wilson initially breaks inside to give himself space to work either way on the defender. He uses a couple of fakes and then starts to fade out towards the back pylon in the end zone. The defender struggles to stay with him, but the quarterback’s throw is to Wilson’s back shoulder instead of out in front. That allows the defender a chance to recover and close the gap. By the time the ball arrives, the defender is back in play, but Wilson does a fantastic job jumping over the top of him and contorting his body in the air to adjust to the flight of the ball and make the catch. Wilson then makes sure to get at least a foot down in bounds to complete the touchdown catch.

Wilson would clearly add a lot to just about any offense in the NFL. His explosiveness with the ball in his hands is undeniable and his potential as a receiver is there too. There are some knocks on his ability to defeat press coverage at the next level, which are legitimate concerns but they can also be worked around by the nature of how teams can use WIlson, moving him around and hiding him from press coverage by stacking him behind another receiver or sending him in motion before the snap. He could probably even work out of the backfield too. He will need to continue on the right path with his route running to separate consistently against the best defenders, but that can be said for almost all receivers coming out of college. 

From a Washington Commanders perspective, Wilson’s skill set would obviously be valuable as the team looks to add more speed and explosiveness to the offense. However, his skill set overlaps with Curtis Samuel significantly. I’m sure Offensive Coordinator Scott Turner could have fun finding ways to make use of both of those guys, but I think to diversify the offense and add more variety of skill sets to the wide receiver group, the Commanders would likely prefer Chris Olave of the two Ohio State receivers. If you want to read more about Olave’s skill set, you can read my article on him here.