A player who did not take the easy path to the 2025 NFL Draft is East Carolina cornerback Shavon Revel Jr. As a high school prep, Division I programs cooled off on him due to both academic qualifying issues and a collarbone injury, leading to him beginning his college football career at Louisburg College, a private two-year college in his home state of North Carolina.
Hoping to get out of the 380-student school with his effort on the field, Revel’s 2020 freshman season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Before he ever stepped on the field for Louisburg, though, he earned a scholarship offer from East Carolina, where he took an unprompted workout visit. After clearing his academic hurdles, Revel was accepted to ECU and played three years for the program — taking advantage of an extra year of eligibility to make up for his 2020 season.
After earning All-AAC honors in 2023, he was offered NIL opportunities in the portal but decided to stick with ECU, the school that gave him his first Division I chance, rather than transferring up to a power program. Unfortunately, that decision ended up leading to him tearing his ACL in an October practice in 2024, which ultimately ended his college career prematurely.
So who is Revel on the field, and why is the former projected first-round pick now expected to be a second-round pick, despite his ACL tear? Let’s get into it.
Shavon Revel Jr. Scouting Report
Length and speed are Revel’s calling cards. Revel stands a hair under 6’2” and has a nearly 80” winspan, which is in the 94th percentile among cornerbacks, according to Mockdraftable. One of the reasons why he’s able to record so many pass breakups is his incredible length, which will be highly valued by teams that run a Cover 3 base scheme, like the Green Bay Packers. It’s one reason why Richard Sherman fit the Seattle Seahawks’ Legion of Boom style defense like a glove, which turned the former Stanford receiver into a future Hall of Famer.
While Revel hasn’t posted a documented 40-yard dash time because he’s overcoming his ACL tear, his film shows a player who is in the 4.3-second range. On shallow crossers, he has to slow himself down to make sure he doesn’t overrun his receiver. On deep crossers, he’s able to stay in the hip of his man coverage assignment, a rare sight.
Usually, when college cornerbacks are pressed up against receivers, play-callers answer by running fades. ECU often invited that, allowing Revel to keep up with outside receivers and forcing incompletions or pass breakups. The biggest example of this on film was his 2023 game against SMU, when the Mustangs tried to beat him over the top over and over again, only to fall short every time. While ECU, not a good football team, ended up losing 31-10, it was clear from that point on that Revel was going to be on NFL radars.
If you want to get a feel for Revel’s athleticism, the Tweet above is two minutes of All-22 film of his college production.
As far as the negatives in his evaluation go, there are a couple. While 194 pounds for a cornerback isn’t small, he’s not a strong tackler or fitter on blocks. He’s willing, but it’s not something that he’s good at. It’s one reason why he’s going to be primarily an outside cornerback rather than bouncing inside into the slot at the next level.
Then, there’s the injury history. He was in a car crash as a youth that ended up costing him his sophomore season in high school, which led to him having a fractured skull and a broken nose. He also broke his collarbone as a junior in high school. Now, he’s dealing with an ACL tear. While none are deal breakers, he will still need to post a clean bill of health before a team turns in a pick for him. That’s probably one reason why the Packers set up their in-person visit with Revel in Green Bay.
Lastly, Revel is a little on the older side. According to a letter penned by the surgeon who performed his ACL reconstruction, Revel is going to turn 24 years old in a week from this article, which is old for a draft prospect. This shouldn’t be a shock, considering that Revel spent five years at the college level.
On film, Revel is a more productive player than an Eric Stokes was, because Revel has more wiggle than even pre-injury Stokes had. The big question is just whether or not he’s going to be cleared by teams and how quickly he’s going to be able to return to the field. If he’s not going to be 100 percent until 2026, how will that impact his draft position? That’s for teams to decide.