What does UNC WR Dyami Brown bring to the Washington Football Team?

What is Washington getting in its third-round receiver?

The second of Washington’s two third-round picks was used on North Carolina wide receiver Dyami Brown. The 6-foot-1, 189 pound receiver posted fantastic numbers in college, with back-to-back 1000-yard seasons his last two years in college, in which he averaged 20 yards per catch in both seasons. Clearly Brown was an explosive deep threat in college football, but what can fans of the Washington Football Team expect from him as he enters the NFL? Let’s take a closer look.

The most interesting aspect of Browns’ game is that while he’s an explosive deep threat, he’s not overly fast. He’s not a DeSean Jackson type with speed to burn as he flies by corners. That’s not to say he’s slow, but that he has to earn his deep ball opportunities with technical work rather than just pure athletic ability. 

This clip shows two deep passes to Brown last season. The first sees Brown isolated to the left of the formation. The defense appears to be in a form of quarters coverage, but the safety to Brown’s side works to the other side of the field due to the potential overload on that side. That leaves Brown one-on-one against a corner playing with outside leverage. Brown angles his route superbly, aiming slightly wider to force the corner to gain additional width and create even more of a gap between the corner and the safety inside. Brown quickly closes the gap between himself and the corner and uses a quick jab to the outside at the top of the route to cause the corner to take a false step. From there he runs by the corner for a deep touchdown.

On the second play, Brown has a bracket coverage to deal with, as the safety drops back and looks to get over the top to protect against any deep threat while the corner sits underneath. Brown takes care of the corner underneath first, using a similar jab step to open up the corner before bursting by him inside. From there, Brown focuses his attention on the safety, again squaring him up by angling his route back outside and selling another jab step outside to get the safety to open his hips to the sideline. As soon as the safety bites, Brown breaks inside towards the post and is wide open.

Brown has some suddenness in his routes and understands how to manipulate defenders by angling his routes to attack the leverage of the defender and create separation. This is what enables him to consistently get open deep, despite lacking elite level speed. The other part of what makes Brown such a good deep threat is his ability to track the ball. Tracking is an extremely under appreciated part of playing receiver. It’s not easy to run away from the throw while locating the ball in the air and adjusting the path and tempo of the route to the trajectory of the ball. Brown does it well.

On the first play of this clip, Brown runs by a press corner and quickly establishes his advantage inside as he runs down the numbers. He turns his head to locate the ball, but in this stadium, he has an extra layer of difficulty to locate and track the ball. He’s running in the only part of the field where the sunlight comes through the stadium, meaning he’s running between bright sunshine and shadows. Baseball players will tell you how hard it is to track a pitch when the ball travels from natural sunlight into shadows and this is no different. However, Brown makes it look easy, widening his path from the middle of the numbers to outside the numbers as he runs underneath the ball to pull in the catch.

The second play of the clip is from the same game. Brown takes advantage of bad coverage by the safety, who leaves the corner on an island when the corner was expecting help inside. Brown runs past both and wide open down the field. However, from the end zone replay angle, you’ll see how Brown’s initial path was outside the numbers, but as he tracked the ball, he had to bend the path back inside towards the numbers. It’s a subtle adjustment that is much harder than it looks, but Brown does it well and it allows him to pull in the catch in stride as he turns it into an even bigger play.

Clearly then, Brown is much more than just some speedster as a receiver. He has a lot more nuance to his game which should translate to consistent production at the next level. While he didn’t have the most advanced route tree in college, that’s not his fault, he can only run what he’s asked to run. But even then, it’s easy to see Brown focuses on perfecting the little details of routes to help him maximize separation and help the quarterback.

On this play, Brown is tasked with running a deep curl route. But instead of just running straight to his spot and turning back to the quarterback, Brown pays attention to the small details which make a route effective. He initially angles his route inside before then angling it outside, convincing the corner of a deeper route on the outside. The corner responds by opening his hips to the sideline as he prepares to turn and run with Brown down the field. Brown then closes the gap between himself and the corner, forcing the corner to commit to turning and running down the field, at which point Brown suddenly breaks off the route and creates a great deal of separation. 

But the route doesn’t stop there. Brown comes out of his break and notices a linebacker is sinking back underneath him, potentially interrupting the throwing window. Brown works back to the ball, which increases the separation between himself and the corner, but also enables him to work his path slightly outside and away from the linebacker. That gives the quarterback a spot to throw the ball to as the pass is completed for a first down.

Brown excels in looking after the finer details in every route he runs, which allows him to create consistent separation rather than having to rely on pure speed or athleticism. One part of route running I think Brown does particularly well is working in the blind spot of the cornerback. When corners open their hips to turn and run with a receiver that is threatening them deep, they leave themselves vulnerable by giving the receiver a blind spot, where they can’t physically see the receiver. 

These two plays show what I mean by working in the blind spot of the cornerback. On the first play, Brown runs a curl route. As the ball is snapped, the corner instantly opens his hips inside to keep vision on the quarterback while bailing deep to stay on top of Brown’s route. Brown uses that opportunity to widen his route and run almost behind the corner. The corner can still feel him, but can’t fully see him, so has to assume the route is still going deep. Brown can then suddenly break off his route without the corner being able to know exactly when he does, creating separation. 

The second play of the clip is another deep route for Brown, but the way he runs it is superb. The cornerback in coverage plays well off the line of scrimmage with heavy inside leverage. Off the snap, Brown attacks the inside leverage angling his route inside before then widening back outside. This causes the corner to open his hips to the sideline early as he turns to run and stay on top of the route. With the corner showing his back to Brown and the quarterback, Brown adjusts his path again, working inside on what looks like a post route. At this point, the corner has no idea where Brown is because he’s completely blind. The corner uses a blind speed turn to try and stay on top of the post, at which point Brown breaks back outside a final time, having turned the corner completely around. Unfortunately the throw from the quarterback was poor, but the technique from Brown was excellent.

Now, Brown isn’t a flawless prospect. He does have a few issues he’ll need to iron out at the next level. One of those issues is drops. He had issues with concentration drops at times, which is always a frustrating trait in a receiver prospect.

These three plays all came in the same game and on similar routes. The first two were both hitch routes against off coverage which should be easy completions, but Brown dropped both passes. On the third attempt, Brown finally catches the pass, but did bobble it before securing it. 

Drops like these can’t happen and if they occur too often, they’ll hold Brown back from being a starting receiver in the NFL, which he is certainly capable of being. Ron Rivera did mention Brown had some concentration drops in his post-draft press conference, and typically those types of drops occur when receivers are focused on making their next move after the catch that they forget to secure the pass first. Hopefully Brown can smooth out that problem because it would be a shame to see him waste such potential.

The other issue I can see Brown having in the NFL is dealing with press coverage. This is something all receivers struggle with when entering the NFL, as the quality of press coverage in college is nowhere near as high or consistent as it is in the NFL. Brown rarely faced press coverage because of his deep threat ability, but he had a few issues with it on occasion.

In these two examples, Brown faces the same press corner and fails with the same move twice. He tries to use a stutter step before releasing outside and down the sideline. However, on both plays, Brown misses with his swipe attempt, allowing the corner to get his hands on him both times. That allows the corner to jam him and force him wider to the sideline, taking him out of the play.

Fortunately for Brown, Washington can help combat this issue. The X receiver is typically the receiver that faces the most press coverage as they have to line up on the line of scrimmage. Terry McLaurin is Washington’s X receiver and will most likely hold that role for a while. Brown played the X in college, but should shift over to the Z spot in Washington. The Z receiver typically aligns one yard off the line of scrimmage, allowing him that little bit of extra space to release into his route. This should allow Brown to be effective early in his career as he improves and develops his release techniques.

One other aspect of Brown’s game I wanted to highlight is his effort to block. He is more than a willing blocker, he’s a good blocker. He regularly makes good blocks in the run game and can often spring a receiver free on a screen by making a critical block.

These plays show Brown’s blocking ability to its full extent. He doesn’t just look to get in the way or shove a defender, he actively engages in blocks and tries to drive defenders backwards to create more yards for his teammates. In the last play of the clip, he even scans the defense for multiple threats as he looks to block a bubble screen. That type of effort to block will endear Brown to his teammates and the coaching staff very quickly and give him a fast track to playing early in his career.

Overall, Brown is a very exciting prospect. While he’s not quite on the level that Terry McLaurin was when Washington drafted him in the third-round a few years ago, he’s someone that could be a very productive player for Washington, even early in his career. With the addition of Curtis Samuel and Adam Humphries, there’s no pressure on him to start right away. But I think he can and will have a significant impact playing the Z receiver role, allowing Samuel to play his more natural role in the slot. I don’t think it will take Brown long to become an effective receiver for Washington, giving them plenty of weapons to work with on the outside.