Scout’s Eye with Matt Williamson: Back to WRs

0:00Hello, hello everybody. I am Matt Williamson. How's it going? Hope it's going well. Chile here again. Anyways, I am here to talk Steelers and wide receiver options. Mostly draft, but I also want to touch on a couple things. I do think more and more that there will be several big name receivers traded. I think Ayuk is going to get cut. I think Pierce is going to go back to the Colts and a real good chance Pitman becomes available as a result. So I am certainly interested in the trade market, the cut market for sure. I also think Romeo Dobbs should be a real option for the Steelers in free agency. And then two other names that I haven't brought up before. I was wanted to mention, I think you guys know I'm pretty prejudice against very undersized slot only type

1:06receivers. But this McCarthy offense is going to be a lot of quick hitters, a lot of chain movers. We know that fits Rogers. Wondale Robinson is pretty good at being that guy. It's really good. He's coming off a good season with poor quarterback play. He would be someone of interest. I mean, he's different than the receivers we've talked about a lot, but he's really good at moving the chains and getting open immediately, which would really fit this quarterback in offense. Again, I'm going to operate on the assumption that Rogers is back. But another guy that kept coming up with Steeler people when I was in Indie is Jalen Naylor of the Vikings. And I originally thought when I heard that name like the Steelers, I'm like, I want better than that. You know, like, but then I started looking into him and he's a Michigan State guy. I talked to Pursuda about him. He's like, I love that guy, Michigan State. He can fly. But I think he's really turned into a much more diverse and frankly better receiver than I had suspected. I think he is going to hit the

2:10open market because it looks like they're going to invest in Addison and they already have Jefferson and they don't have a lot of money to spend at all. Side note, it sounds like they're going to cut Javan Hargrave too. Maybe we'll bring his name up at some point, although his season was far from wonderful. But a year ago he was marketable. Don't forget, the Steelers' offensive coordinator comes from Minnesota. Now, if they were sign Naylor at a reasonable rate, he's a good player. He's better than I thought. It's all things. And it has really improved since he's been in the league. Also true with Dobs. But then I'm still probably in the first round receiver market. Like I think Naylor's a really solid three. But like something I said earlier today, Sears were to killed for that guy last year. More and more, you can convince me that the Steelers don't have to use the 21st pick on a wide receiver. If they would add the right guy in this conversation,

3:13we've had to this point. But you're going to have a hard time convincing me that one of their first two picks shouldn't be a wide receiver, almost no matter what. I mean, like I know this isn't going to happen. But if they traded for AJ Brown today, this second, I'm still probably using a second on pick on a receiver. Because there's a lot of them and we're going to get to that. And you really should bring in three. I still believe that to no end. I am bringing it out. But top to me, I'm bringing a veteran of note, a high pick, top two rounds most likely. And like a fifth round guy that has ability to develop and probably has some return skills, which is also a need at the moment. Yeah, the NFL season's done. But is it ever really? You can still bet online with America's best sports betting site, the Fandall sports book. That includes all current sports,

4:17all of this summers coming sports. And hey, for what it's worth, you can get in on NFL action toward the 2026 season already. Never a dull moment, never an inactive moment, the best place to bet on sports, play online games, build your fantasy team. Is it Fandall? So that brings us to what we saw over the weekend. And a lot of really good times, a lot of really impressive athleticism from the wide receiver position overall. And so I brought up the combine list. And I just sorted it by 40 times in case, you know, I don't want to miss any. But so I'm going to start with the fastest dudes of interest. I mean, like Brendan Thompson, ran a 426. He was the fastest and Xavier on Thomas from LSU, ran a 428. They were the two fastest.

5:17They're mid to late round picks, though. I mean, so they're fast, but they aren't going to like exactly solve the need. They're more that fifth round type guy that I mentioned. Deon Berks has some interest for me. He plays a little, he's a smaller dude, Oklahoma. He ran a 435 flat. Basically a true slot, a lot of what I talked about with Juan Del Robinson. plays has some physicality and some thickness to his body, too. He's not just tiny, but he's a really good athlete. He might be more of a third rounder or in that neighborhood. I know people are going crazy over Jeff Caldwell from Cincinnati. And I understand that his combine was ridiculous. I mean, 64 with all the numbers that you just say, wow, that should be like when the first picks in the draft. But he too, to me, is more like a fifth round player. He's very, very raw, but I'd love to add two guys of prominence and then him late and just develop him, develop him,

6:20develop him, because there are so many tools there. Tray Lance's brother Bryce from North Dakota state to me is a really good football player that would be that second round guy for this dealers. Ran a 434. His jumps were phenomenal. He's got size. He's got physicality. He easily could have transferred from North Dakota state. He is very much of interest to me. Zachariah Branch from Georgia is another smaller guy, a lot like Deon Berks. He ran a 435. Like I said, I'm sorted these by 40 times. I'm not going to go over every receiver in the draft. I just want to talk about the fast guys first and foremost. He's small. And what's weird about him, not necessarily his fault, because he did look good in the combine drills. Not necessarily the testing. The testing was great, but the drills were also good. But they threw him the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage a lot. Just to get there, you know, the ball in the hands of good players, which I

7:24understand from a winning college game perspective, but it doesn't really help us in the scouting world. Some other names here. Chris Brazil, I think, is somebody you have to know. He ran a 437, Tennessee, a big, long strider, fast outside the numbers in a Mickey Mouse offense type guy. I don't even know if he'll be there for the steel to second round pick at this point. I mean, his, he's a really smooth mover. A lot of his tape just implies, man, he's going to go high. So he definitely interests me as well. I don't think I can get the first round with a guy, but I don't know if he'll be there in a second. Skylar Bell from Connecticut is also really interesting to me. Great jumps. Really fast. A lot to like there as well. Maybe he's more in the third round neighborhood. And I guess you could convince me if they were to only sign nailer. What if you used a second and third round pick on a receiver in that instance? There's

8:29just a, you know, somebody in the first round, you can't believe still there. You fell in love with banks from Florida or the men or somebody like that. And then you go two day two receivers. I mean, you do four picks on that day. Somebody like Skylar Bell might, might, might fit that mold for you. A couple of other guys to talk about. You may not have heard of Ted Hurst from Georgia State. Very small competition of obviously, but let them up. Downfield guy, size speed, but much more than that. I don't think he's as much of a project as you would think. I mean, he's six four. All the jump stuff was good. I mean, he really kind of a long legged type guy. Downfield type of dude. I'm a fan of his as well. I think he's really exciting to me. And then a couple other names I wanted to mention. Jacobi Lane from USC. This one, I think, is a little bit of fulls gold because

9:29he was a highly recruited dude, long tall. And you knew he was tall and fast. And he proved those things at the, the combine. But he gets pushed around a lot. You know, like his tape, he might be a better, I think, oh, he definitely is a better combine guy tester than he is wide receiver. He really struggles to get off press man coverage. Real high in his releases gets bullied through routes. That worries me. But a guy that I'm really falling in love with in the second round for the Steelers is Jeremy Bernard from Alabama. Rana 448. I think you guys know that I am a big believer in three cone drills for wide receivers like JSN had the best three cone drill you ever see. And you can just see that kind of movement of not having to decelerate as through his breaks and body control. Well, Bernard was the best recone receiver in the draft. 61206 just seems like a

10:37professional long standing number two, number three quality NFL player type of dude from a big program. So Jeremy Bernard as I bet is somebody they like a lot. Last thing I wanted to bring up to is a lot of people all of a sudden now are down on Malachi fields from Notre Dame. Which I get because of everyone that ran a 40 only one dude ran slower. It was a 461. Okay, that's not great. And it is going to hurt his stock. There's no question in my mind. But this flat out speed is the most overrated aspect of wide receiver evaluation. And this guy isn't super sudden and he is not the great separator. But he is 64 and a half and he's 218 pounds. I bet he's going to play around 220. His three cone wasn't bad. His jump sword good. His senior ball was really good. So I don't want to overreact to that because

11:45these guys times have gotten so much faster over the years that I mean five years ago, if I told you a wide receiver with his size and dimensions and play style and ability to go up and pluck the football and get it ran a very low four sixes. Nobody really would have batted an eye. And my hunch is he'll go to Notre Dame and he'll run a four five six or something like that is pro day. And yeah, those pro days people don't remember as much. So I am not like throwing him out. Oh, you can't you can't wait with that guy. I don't believe that at all. So just some more receiver talk. It's going to be very topical obviously. I'd be shocked if they don't add one frankly the next like 10 days. So that's about that time too. All right, take care. See you.