Why Jaelen Strong Does Not Belong in the 1st Round of the 2015 NFL Draft
Arizona State wide receiver Jaelen Strong is regularly regarded as one of the best wide receivers in this year's class.
Many draft analysts believe that Strong will be a first-round pick.
SB Nation's Dan Kadar has Strong going 14th overall to the Miami Dolphins in his most recent mock draft. NFL.com's Daniel Jeremiah sees Strong falling two more spots to the Houston Texans. Two of Jeremiah's fellow NFL.com analysts, Lance Zierlein and Charles Davis, have Strong going to the Baltimore Ravens at 26th overall, a selection that Sporting News' Eric Galko shares in his most recent mock draft.
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Matching Strong with the Ravens late in the first round is a choice that has been popular over the past 12 months or so. That should be no surprise considering the type of player Strong is.
Those who appreciate Strong's skill set typically do so because they admire his ability to win the ball at the catch point. As such, he draws similarities to Anquan Boldin, a player who was recently a key component of a Ravens team that won a Super Bowl.
Boldin has extended his career by consistently making difficult receptions against tight coverage. He became a major part of the Ravens offense because he understood how to use his strength and size to gain positioning against the defenders trying to cover him.
The former Arizona Cardinals receiver and now San Francisco 49ers player has always had very impressive ball skills that extended the catch radius of his 6'1" frame.
Officially, Boldin is listed at 6'1" and 220 pounds, although that measurement was made when he entered the league in 2003. Strong recently measured in at 6'2" and 217 pounds with 32 ½-inch arms at the combine. Neither player has exceptional playing speed or fluidity, so the comparison from a purely physical point of view is accurate.
While playing in college, Strong had numerous flashes of Boldin-like plays.
On this play, the receiver is able to release inside of the cornerback after initially hesitating at the line of scrimmage. After getting inside of the cornerback, Strong drew the attention of the safety to his side of the field.
A well-timed throw from the quarterback gave Strong a chance to make a reception, but the ball arrived slightly behind him.
Despite the threat of an impending hit from the inside and the presence of the cornerback tightly to his outside, Strong willingly opens up his body to adjust to the ball. He makes a comfortable, clean catch before securing the ball as he goes to the ground.
This is the type of play that Boldin has made throughout his career.
A caveat exists here. That is the type of play Boldin has made throughout his career.
For Boldin, this is a routine play. A play that he will expect to make over 90 times if you give him 100 opportunities. For Strong, this isn't a routine play. Instead it's rare that the receiver will so comfortably come down with the ball, if he comes down with it at all.
It's possible to establish a skill set on just a handful of plays, but it takes a larger sample to justify the value of that skill set. Repetition is needed to gauge consistency, and consistency is vitally important to the success of any player at any level of sport.
Wide receivers with narrow skill sets need to be more consistent than those with broad skill sets. Strong has a very, very narrow skill set, so he can't afford to be inconsistent with his strengths.
This play highlights the limitations of the 21-year-old receiver. He is able to make the reception but only because the pass is perfect. He is too slow and tentative during his release from the line of scrimmage to comfortably get into his route.
Once he is in his route, the cornerback is able to drape over him because Strong's route is poor. His linear movement and lack of upper-body fluidity make it easy for the defensive back.
After the quarterback fits the ball into the smallest of windows, Strong is released into space on the second level. He shows off good awareness to locate the cutback lane. From this position, Strong should re-accelerate to outrun the safety to the pylon. However, he is incapable of doing that.
Strong ran very well at the combine (4.44 40-yard dash), but that speed is rarely evident on the field. It's especially notable that he can't reaccelerate or adjust comfortably after turning or planting his foot.
This brings us back to the catch point. Strong caught 82 passes for 1,165 yards and 10 touchdowns last year. By Football Study Hall's measure, the Arizona State player was targeted 152 times. As the site also highlights, this is a very poor ratio compared to his peers.
It would be considered a very poor ratio in the NFL also.
Because of the different elements in football, these raw numbers can come about in different ways—ways that may be out of the control of the receiver who the number is assigned to. Strong's service from his quarterback wasn't impressive, but he can't simply pass the blame onto him.
From just a selection of six games that are available on Draft Breakdown, there was an overwhelming number of examples that highlighted Strong's ball skills for the wrong reasons.
On this play, Strong is running a skinny post route from the slot. The defensive back aligned across from Strong is standing just outside of the end zone, roughly seven yards away from Strong. Strong's route is very poor and laborious. He gives the defender a chance to get level with him as he breaks infield.
A receiver of Strong's size and supposed skill set shouldn't need to get clean inside the cornerback in this situation. He should use his strength and ball skills to make the catch even if contested.
The ball is well-thrown from the quarterback. It arrives accurately and on time. However, Strong doesn't show off a "my ball" mentality. He doesn't aggressively attack it as early as possible, so the defender has a chance to disrupt him.
With that chance, he is able to punch the ball away through Strong's hands. To consistently win at the catch point in the NFL, you have to be able to sustain control of the football despite taking heavy body hits or hand hits.
Strong's routes are consistently terrible. He does nothing to disguise his intentions and shows no suddenness entering or exiting breaks. This play serves as a great example. He runs an in route the way a Madden player would run the route by following a precise outline of the route.
The best route-runners will attack the shoulders of their defenders before using their feet or upper-body fakes to create separation. They set up space with their initial movement before attacking it rapidly.
Because of his inability to create separation in a situation such as this one, Strong can't simply run his route as designed. He tries to catch the ball as if he is wide open over the middle of the field. Instead he needed to angle back toward it slightly or extend his hands backward, away from his body to meet the ball.
Any receiver who consistently approaches the catch point like this needs to excel at creating separation to be effective in the NFL.
Most of the examples of Strong's struggles at the catch point will come from tight situations. That is because he is primarily targeted while tightly covered, but it's also because that's what will be important in the NFL. Yet, against Washington, Strong also showed off an open-field drop on a screen pass.
These types of drops are always marked down as concentration drops, but the most significant part of this play can be seen in Strong's actions.
He attempts to body-catch the ball instead of corralling it with his hands. Because he also slightly misjudged the flight of the pass, it was able to slide off of him for a potential interception. When receivers know they are open, they will attempt to catch the ball in a way that is most natural to them.
It's a bad sign for Strong that his natural reaction to a wide-open pass is to watch it come into his body. That's something that is a recurring issue from these examples.
At this current time, there may not be a better wide receiver in the NFL than Odell Beckham Jr. when it comes to ball skills. Even though he has been in the league for just one season, he has already excelled to that level. One of the things Beckham does better than anyone is work back through the ball.
Working back through the ball changes the angle at which you attack it so you can not only negate the coverage of the defender, but keep moving toward space/away from the sideline.
On this play, Strong makes the fatal mistake of drifting with the defender and the ball simply because his initial movement brought him in that direction. Had Strong recognized the flight of the ball earlier and been more aggressive to work back through the defender's inside shoulder, he would have had the length to pull the pass down.
Playing with a poor quarterback in college will inevitably hurt a receiver's production, but it can sometimes make it easier to evaluate his skill set moving forward. Lesser quarterbacks will often put more pressure on their receivers and ask them to adjust at the catch point in ways they will have to when they reach the NFL.
Strong definitely played with a quarterback who put pressure on him to make plays at the catch point.
The timing of this throw was off, which impacted the quarterback's accuracy. Although the pass was still catchable, it wasn't necessarily accurate. Strong needed to show off quick reactions to adjust and reel the ball in while his body dragged him in the wrong direction.
Making the catches above your head in the corner of the end zone is always a more celebrated play, but the ability to adjust to passes below your shoulders is arguably more important for sustained success. As was highlighted on this play, Strong struggles to make these kinds of plays.
With his overall lack of fluidity and hesitancy, it's unlikely that he ever develops this ability either.
The concept of throwing a receiver open is a prominent one in the NFL that is often showcased by the top quarterbacks. It's not something that is regularly shown by average or below-average NFL starters, and it's something that is never shown by the worst players in the league.
On the college level, it's something that comes around sporadically.
Theoretically, Strong should excel with a quarterback who can throw him open because he is a Boldin-type of receiver. Any quarterback who can put it in a spot for him to go and get it against tight coverage is theoretically what he needs.
None of that matters if he can't make the reception though, and that is exactly what happened on this play. The defender played perfect coverage, but the quarterback fit the ball through to his receiver, who dropped the ball.
As previously noted, Strong prefers to catch the ball into his body instead of away from it with his hands. This seems like a minor thing when it is written down on paper, but it doesn't take long watching football on the field to see how hugely impactful that specific trait can be.
Winning at the catch point is all about positioning and how you attack the ball. Nothing else matters.
Often we focus on the size of a player, but his ball skills and positioning can negate that size so the raw measurable is essentially meaningless. On this play, Strong has positioning against his defensive back because he can see the ball while the defender must run away from it in pursuit.
Strong should be able to reach back for the ball or stop his momentum to draw a pass-interference penalty. Instead, he waits for the ball to come low into his midsection, allowing the defender to intercept it after it bounces off of his body.
This is the kind of play that a successful receiver simply can't expect to get away with. Everything was in the receiver's favor, but how he attacked the ball negated everything else.
What's most concerning with Strong is the variety and consistency of his failures at the catch point. Despite the rare standout play where he makes a reception on a pass that is above his shoulders, he doesn't have good ball skills.
His catch radius doesn't extend around his body. He struggles to locate the football early. He doesn't always track it through to his hands. He more often than not drifts away from the ball or waits for it, affording the covering defender the first opportunity to play the football.
Maybe Strong can develop in this area, but most prospects can only develop a certain amount. Most NFL players don't actually develop all that much once they are drafted.
Strong doesn't offer 10 strengths and one or two areas that need to be developed. He has a narrow skill set, and he lacks consistency where he wins in that skill set. Drafting him is not like drafting Kevin White. White needs to develop more in the NFL to fulfill his potential, but he has more versatility and consistency.
That versatility and consistency within his skill set should make teams more comfortable with betting on the West Virginia prospect.
Players who are seen as projects should offer a greater upside than what Strong offers. Taking him early in the draft would be like betting $1,000,000 for a $1,000 return. The risk-reward balance simply doesn't align to make it a logical decision.
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