Though the NFL Draft remains two months anyway, we’ve been busy producing a slew of scouting reports to prepare. Despite getting a later start due to focusing on Pittsburgh’s head coaching change and search, we’re not far away from 100 published scouting reports already. Given the need, plenty of attention has been spent on wide receiver. In fact, we’ve already written reports on 14 of them so far, including virtually all the top names of the class.
So how does the group stack up so far? The upcoming NFL Combine could change reality, or at least perception, but does this class look as promising. Under our new grading system, here’s how the candidates stack up.
Hall Of Fame Grade
None
All-Pro Grade
Makai Lemon/USC – 9.0
Longtime Starter
KC Concepcion/Texas A&M – 8.9
Carnell Tate/Ohio State – 8.7
Omar Cooper Jr./Indiana – 8.6
Jordan Tyson/Arizona State – 8.5 MED
Chris Brazzell II/Tennessee – 8.4
Chris Bell/Louisville – 8.4 MED
Germie Bernard/Alabama – 8.3
Denzel Boston/Washington – 8.3
Antonio Williams/Clemson – 8.3
Malachi Fields/Notre Dame – 8.0
Spot Starter
Elijah Sarratt/Indiana – 7.8
Skyler Bell/UConn – 7.7
Josh Cameron/WR Baylor – 7.7
A couple of takeaways.
– Off the top, it’s worth noting our reports are created by a variety of people. We have ten different writers publishing reports. These are, of course, subjective and each eye and grade can be a little different. But we have the grade system to create some level of uniformity and believe the changes this year focus more on player ability and outcome instead of round projection.
The only downside to this new system is we can’t apples-to-apples compare it to past classes, since they were graded under a different scale.
– The class has lots of good talent but might be lacking truly elite names. Only one grade has gotten into the 9’s, USC’s Makai Lemon hitting exactly at a 9.0. Most others are somewhere in the 8’s. That includes Tate, who is generally believed to be the first receiver taken in this year’s draft.
Could that mean Pittsburgh should wait until round two? If there isn’t a big difference in talent at receiver compared to other positions, say cornerback or even offensive line, there might not be a rush to draft the position immediately. That’s why stacking the board is important to understand class depth and strength and where talent falls off. In our grades, there’s a big cluster.
– The receiver class appears to be high character. So far, none of our profiles have received an “off field” tag that denotes troubling background or history. Two of them have “MED” tags for medical concerns. Tyson is flagged for a history of leg injuries including a severe 2023 one, tearing his ACL, MCL, and PCL in his left knee. Bell is coming off a “clean” tear of just his ACL in 2025. His surgery was recent, delaying his NFL timeline all the more.
– This year, we’ve also introduced grade ranges to show the most realistic best/worst set out of outcomes to understand player variance and “boom/bust” nature. Here are the range deltas for each:
Tyson: 1.7
S. Bell: 1.5
Brazzell: 1.4
Fields: 1.4
Concepcion: 1.3
Cameron: 1.3
Lemon: 1.2
Bernard: 1.1
Boston: 1.1
Tate: 0.9
Sarratt: 0.9
Cooper: 0.8
Williams: 0.7
C. Bell: 0.6
On paper, that makes Tyson, Skyler Bell, Brazzell, and Fields the “riskiest” players with the highest risk/reward factor. And Sarratt, Cooper, Williams, and Chris Bell the “safest” players, though Bell’s injury is separate from the grade and should be treated as an external factor to his play. Of course, there’s other considerations in play of what the numerical grades are. A player with lower grades but a tighter range isn’t necessarily better than one with higher grades but a broader range.
We’ll revisit this close to draft day and see how the full list shakes out. If you want to see this for other positions, let us know. Our first Steelers Depot Big Board will drop in the coming days, too, to offer a stack perspective of the top names of the class.
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