The 2024 NFL Draft receiver class is stacked at the top, but don’t let that be an excuse to forget about Keon Coleman. Coleman’s scouting report still holds heavyweight in the 2024 class, and in the right scheme, he could pay back the dividends tenfold.
Keon Coleman’s Draft Profile and Measurements
- Height: 6’3 1/4″
- Weight: 213 pounds
- Length: 32 3/8″
- Wingspan: 77 1/2″
- Hand: 9 3/8″
- Position: Wide Receiver
- School: Florida State
- Current Year: Junior
Coleman was a multi-sport athlete in high school who played six games under Basketball Hall of Fame head coach Tom Izzo at Michigan State in 2021. He’s always had talent that transcends individual sports, but football is Coleman’s specialty.
A four-star recruit in the 2021 cycle, Coleman became a leading target in Michigan State’s suspect passing offense in 2022, alongside 2023 second-round pick Jayden Reed.
Despite volatility at quarterback and up front on the offensive line, Coleman thrived as a true sophomore in 2022. He racked up 58 catches, 798 yards, and seven touchdowns and leveraged that second-year production into a transfer opportunity to Florida State.
All Keon Coleman does is make plays!
— College Football Network (@CFN365) October 15, 2022
Coleman was the last piece to the Seminoles’ dream team, and he did his part in 2023, amassing a whopping 11 touchdowns on just 50 catches and averaging 13.2 yards per catch and one touchdown per every 4.5 receptions.
He doesn’t have the same receiving volume as other top WR prospects like Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze, but Coleman’s raw talent has him in the thick of the Round 1 conversation.
Coleman showed off that talent at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis this past March. While his 40-yard dash time of 4.61 seconds stuck out, it caused many to overlook other metrics that speak to his explosiveness — a 38″ vertical and a 10’7″ broad jump that hovered near the 90th percentile.
Coleman’s Scouting Report
Strengths
- Lab-built athlete with excellent size, length, frame density, and compact mass.
- Is an effortless accelerator with hyperactive foot speed and lateral twitch for his size.
- Can use brisk one-cut agility to make solo defenders miss in space and surge upfield.
- Uses efficient diamond releases to offset DBs and two-hand swipes to pry free.
- Actively presses upfield off releases and can manipulate DB blind spots against zone.
- Can suddenly snap back, retract his strides, and swivel around after pressing into stems.
- Carries acceleration through stems and tight transitions with bend and hip flexibility.
- Molds together elite timing, coordination, body control, and strength at the catch point.
- Is an awe-inspiring contortionist with a gravity-bending feel for positioning in midair.
- Makes high-difficulty adjustments look effortless and seeks out the ball past his frame.
- Snares contested targets with his swathing reach and suffocating hand strength.
- Maximizes instincts with sharp tracking ability, hands, and a proactive alpha mentality.
- Uses arm bars and swipes to clear his frame ahead of contested catches.
- Utilizes strong contact balance to absorb hits and recollect his feet soon after.
- Elite run blocker with patience, leverage awareness, and unfurled tenacity at contact.
Weaknesses
- Explosiveness, while exceptional, isn’t always enough to completely stack boundary DBs.
- Has enough burst to stress vertically but doesn’t have high-end vertical range.
- Sometimes can be a bit late to decouple from defenders and turn his head on deep routes.
- Can be prone to occasional drops on low, high-difficulty catch attempts.
- Doesn’t quite have elite hip flexibility and sinking capacity, as hips can lock up.
- Has to take extra steps to gather himself on 180-degree route transitions.
- Sometimes will divert upright at stems, sapping at momentum and keying in DBs.
- At times, plant-and-drive footwork on comeback routes can be more efficient.
- Has immense promise with his route tree but can strive for more consistent technique.
- Still learning how to sequence short-area agility and physicality against press coverage.
- Contact balance, while solid, is not elite and doesn’t always bail him out on short passes.
Current Draft Projection and Summary
Coleman is my WR8 in the 2024 NFL Draft and grades out as a top-40 prospect. He’s a fringe first-round, early second-round talent who could thrive in a scheme that weaponizes his best traits.
At around 6’3″, 213 pounds, Coleman is a surprisingly enthralling three-level threat, who can outmatch defensive backs in all phases. There’s still room for him to refine his route-running pallet, but even there, he has an upside to unearth.
Coleman’s most marketable phase of play is his catching ability. He can naturally box out and out-reach defenders at the catch point and expand beyond his pure size with extraordinary catch-point instincts, contortion ability, hand-eye coordination, and an extremely proactive alpha mentality.
Being an elite contested-catch and red-zone threat is a plus, but Coleman also has exciting utility as a separator and RAC weapon.
As a route runner, Coleman can tempo his releases and use foot speed, twitch, and targeted physicality to separate. He also has the swivel freedom to cut tight angles on route breaks. Particularly against zone, his manipulative tendencies shine.
After the catch, Coleman combines elite explosiveness, one-cut agility, contact balance, and physicality to torment defensive backs. He can be used on designed touches like screens, sweeps, drags, and slants to maximize his ability in open space.
KEEP READING: Top WRs in the 2024 NFL Draft
Coleman does have room to keep refining his footwork efficiency as a route runner. While he has all of the necessary route-running building blocks and flashes brightly in that department, he’s not quite consistent enough to be a Day 1 target funnel in the NFL.
Nevertheless, Coleman is ultimately an explosive, fleet-footed, and flexible athlete at his size, with a rare level of utility and playmaking ability across phases. On Day 1, he has alpha ability on the vertical plane or big-slot and movement-Z utility as a middle-field catcher and yardage creator.
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