Transcription
This is Louisville wide receiver Chris Bell. 6'2, 222, and he claims he could run in the 4.3s. Josh, I believe him. I almost spit out my coffee. Would he turn the corner for those touchdowns on these shallow crosses? Go watch the Miami game. If you're a true Chris Bell sicko out there, and then at the end of my film study, I just wrote down, I think Chris Bell is a receiver with the most upside in the draft. I can't tell you who's going to hit it, but I do think he has the most upside in the entire class.
Let's put some numbers on this. Okay, just shy of 22 years of age, 6'2, 222 lbs, 87th percentile hand size. That will pop up here in a moment. He did have a late-season ACL tear again on November 22nd, reportedly. And from what I researched, Hayden, it was an isolated ACL tear and nothing to do with any other league ligaments. But like you talked about with Miami, that wasn't the only time that he took a short pass and went to the races.
I mean, JMU, he shoved off at the line of scrimmage, a slant versus zone. He ran to maintain that same distance on the yards after the catch, then shrugs off a tackle at the goal line for 64 yards. This is one of those players, at least on the college field, that looked like the best athlete on the field. And that's always cool when that happens at the wide receiver spot.
Yeah, it's just the yards after the catch ability for his size makes absolutely no sense. And we haven't even seen him try to really work down the football field very often, which I'm trying to figure out. Is that a Chris Bell issue? Was that a Louisville issue? But I do know 83 yards per game last year is really good. And he went nine for 136 and two against Miami. Nobody did that the entire season. Like that was a Chris Bell, "I'm the best player on the field" with a bunch of first-round pick type of performance. 10.1 yards after the catch on his crossing routes and slants. Like those are low-target routes. 10 yards after the catch. That is outrageous. I have had the most fun watching him. There was another one down the sideline going up, catching the ball. A safety hits him. He just runs right through the safety. He's just built different. I hate to kind of like just simplify this, but I'm watching all these other wide receivers who I really like their route running, their craftiness, and then you look at some of the best wide receivers in the NFL, and a lot of times those guys also are the 6'2, 222 guys that can run the 4.3s.
Totally. The other part of that though is sometimes there are other 6'2, 222 lb guys who flame out because they don't know how to do the craftiness or understand the game at all. Like I talk about telling a story all the time with your routes and fluidity. That is not him. This is not Chris Bell. Like he is a power, straight-angle wide receiver and certainly would not call him one of these elegant route runners. He is all athlete, but his strides eat up so much ground. He is obviously explosive and he definitely has his speed, like we keep saying, to run away on these drags and crossers after the catch. Um, I'm not sure if he has like the make-you-miss gene after the catch in terms of like the game slowing down, becoming a true ball carrier and force you in this way and, you know, step in the opposite direction. It's just very clear he's always been the best athlete on his football team, whether that be in high school or college, and he leans on that, which is kind of totally fine to me. Like, this is why prospects are prospects. Uh, and we hope that they like develop once they reach the NFL. What do you think he can develop into? Let's put it that way.
Well, I think there's like not really much of like a cap ceiling to his game. I just think it's going to take a lot of like development to get there. So, it's not to me like what like if he hits, he's going to absolutely hit. It's just we have to be realistic about how much development he needs. I do think that his route release package is lackluster. He kind of gets a little bit choppy on these these breaking routes to to a degree. And we did not see him just dominate down the field every single game. Not that he was running a bunch of downfield routes. He really wasn't. It was all these kind of underneath routes. So, I'm not sure if they didn't trust a quarterback or whatever it was, but I I do think if you if you want to reach the ceiling that I'm talking about, like he has to be able to win down the football field. To me, there's like he's way too fast, way too big. Like, there's no reason why he can't do that. It's just a projection. So, I think it's a lot of this is like how many years do we get here? How bought in is Chris Bell? How healthy is Chris Bell coming off the ACL? Just what's a realistic path to actually hitting this upside? It's not like what is the upside. I think the upside's incredible.
I do think part of that was Louisville's offense. Like they kind of ran more pro-style stuff versus a lot of other teams out there. It wasn't, you know, we're going to spread everyone out, run everyone down the field, pick which side, and throw the deep ball. Uh, it was more under-center stuff. It was under-center play action. In fact, there are a lot of times only two wide receivers on the field, it felt like. And so we did see a lot of, I felt, press-man reps on the outside, and those are very difficult when we go through 30 of these wide receiver prospects, uh, every single year. So I'm with you. I I have some actual concerns again about him creating natural space just with his footwork and his releases and maintaining that. We did see outbreakers, we saw fewer inbreakers, we did see slants, we did see drags, and then like the the nine-route stuff on top of it.
I do wonder early in his career, and stick with me here, could he be just like the power athlete slot like Rasheed Rice early on while he's developing? I understand that we're gonna see a bunch of comparisons and you might throw out some as like a true outside wide receiver phenom, but in order for the most immediate production, why not just get them on these underneath routes? Oh, yeah.
Like almost these Jameson Williams-esque, hey, all the action is going this way. We're going to work you against the grain and give you all this room to run into and all you have to do is catch the ball and, uh, just be a dude. I think the Rasheed Rice one does make some sense, and that's what makes him so interesting is that I can see him just being this shallow cross demon type. I also have like DJ Moore kind of in my notes where I think totally crossing routes with DJ Moore, maybe a little bit more down the field than Rashi Rice. Absolute same skillset. Uh, just a bigger body working down the field. I can see that. I do see some T.J. Hockenson to this. I'm going to use my Debo Samuel comp card to a degree, uh, right here. I've never done this before. I always make fun of it. There. This is the height, weight, speed profile that you can actually compare Debo Samuel to. And I looked at it, all these guys that were comparing to up, total upside comps, you know, everyone throws out the A.J. Brown one. I think there's some, you know, some DeSean Jackson size, weight, speed type of profile here. Uh, all those guys, I looked through all their scouting reports at the time, always in the con section was, they're just not good route runners. I'm not saying that route running, everyone becomes a better route runner in the NFL. I do think that is something when you get your entire life is dependent on and you got coaches yelling at you every single moment, it is probably something that you get a little bit better feel for, uh, throughout, uh, your next rookie contract and the second contract. So, I do think we should be penciling in some projection here. Um, I would love to interview him, get to know his ACL and all that type of stuff right now, but I do think a lot of these guys that we kind of nitpick, they do end up getting better in the pros, and I want to be, uh, leaving the light on for Chris Bell.
Oh, totally. And I'm not saying this is a one-on-one comparison, but again, other 6'2, 220 guys, Savior League, John Flamingo, Stephen Hill, you know, like athletes. Oh, we, uh, Burks. Yeah. Yeah. Treylon Burks is is definitely another that that is of the silk. It's interesting. Dion Branch is his wide receiver coach. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Now, the other part of not maybe creating enough separation is he did have 24 contested targets this past season despite missing multiple games. In fact, in this draft class, he might have led the class if he played the entire season. Yeah. In contested grabs. So, I think that kind of speaks to again, they'll throw it up to him, though. I I went on a bit of a journey, I will say, on how great he was with these contested grabs. Like, early on, I think it was Eastern Kentucky, another one versus Pitt. Uh, you had, I thought, a bad middle-of-the-field drop versus Bowling Green, like when he felt maybe some defenders converted on him. Yeah, his hands kind of got a little alligator armish. But man, then he showed he could play the ball so well in terms of tracking in that Virginia game, the one-handed back shoulder, the two-handed back shoulder. He's also working back to the football at that point, too. And then like you said, that big-time elevated catch against SMU along the sideline was something special. And so to your point, if we are hoping this side of a player develops, I already saw development during his final season in college when he was actually getting, you know, wide receiver coaching from a former wide receiver in the NFL. And if I went on a small journey in this, what, 10 games during his final year, what is that going to be in the next 10 games, the next 20, 30, 40?
Yeah. And this rookie year could be kind of a waste. I think he's trying to get back for training camp. I don't think that's a guarantee. He's going to definitely miss like the rookie-only part of mini-camps. So, he's going to be behind the eight ball, and I do think we're talking about some of the rawness to his game. So, I can see this being not the cleanest rookie season from him, and I'm just like, still going to hold out hope that Chris Bell can like fully turn it around. I also think that we kind of play the downside case with these like big athlete guys because there's like very obvious, you know, the Mingo. I knew you were going to say Mingo and Legette. It's so obvious. Some of the small guys, you know, the Jalin Darden and stuff that are the crafty guys and stuff, they also can just flat-out stink. You know, Jalen Polk was in this kind of range where like high-floor prospect is like, well, they just didn't have the juice or the hands or whatever it may be. So, all these guys have bust potential whether you're drafting the guard in this range or the crazy wide receiver. And I just do see enough upside here where I'm going to be ranking him ahead of consensus. And I I I just want to believe. I can't tell you it's going to actually happen, but I do see like the the best 5-10 plays from Chris Bell like was legitimately making me laugh watching it.
Of all the wide receivers in this class with 50 targets, I think there were 111. Uh, he was 14th with 2.55 yards per route run. Again, he had the ninth most contested targets despite missing multiple games of 24. He was 47th in YAC per reception at 5.2. And he still did have 110 targets this year again. So, the sample size is fine. And on that sample size note, you know, when you're just watching these guys, I'm like, he's basically only lining up on the right side over and over and over again. 499 snaps on the right, only 22 on the left, and 112 in the slot this season. Then I went back and I was like, has it always been that case? No. In 2024, he played 582 of his 690 wide snaps, but the vast majority of those were on the left side. So, it's interesting.
Season by season. Kevin White is always my fear when I see a guy only lining up on one side because again, your footwork is the same in terms of releases. You have the same weight transfer on slants and the ends and the outbreakers and all that type of stuff if it's on the same side on at all times. But at least him having experience on both sides gives me a little more security, uh, comfort that, you know, this isn't a complete project because he's not a complete project. Like we see other pure like Stephen Hill. Chris Bell is on a different tier of a prospect, I think, than Stephen Hill was.
Yeah. And then like Tayen Bike, like just did not play on the outside at all. Chris Bell, he's playing on the outside. So there's there's like a little bit of proof of concept here. Is it enough proof of concept where I'm taking inside, you know, the top 20, 25? No. If, you know, like the Chiefs draft him at 29th overall, would I like personally throw a pizza party at my place? I probably would. I think he's probably going to go in the 40s somewhere in that range, and I think that is a steep discount for what his upside is. So, just super exciting football player. I hope he gets healthy immediately.
I love the DJ Moore comparison that you threw out because DJ Moore has never been a, let's call it, technician route runner. Uh, I had Jaylen Coker to Pierre Garçon if we wanted to be like outside players. Pierre Garçon was very much lots of crossers with K.J. Hamler. But again, early on, I think we can make him, if he's healthy, a 60-65% player and just get him in that Rashi Rice crossing route YAC role and have some real wow moments with the ball in his hands and allow him to rumble off the edge.
That's my ideal fit here. Yeah. Yeah, I I could totally see that. Um, A.J. Brown played a lot of inside snaps and then played more outside down the football field. I think that's like if everything, I mean, we're talking about 10 things need to go his way. That's what the end thing would look like would be A.J. Brown. You don't get to throw say he could be A.J. Brown a whole lot on these videos, you know. So that's where I I draw some some of the excitement. So yeah, DJ Moore, I think would be an awesome, you know, output for for Chris Bell. And hopefully it's not, you know, the next Xavier Legette. These are always difficult conversations to have, I'm sure inside draft rooms because they can you can easily make the pitch of, well, if he didn't get injured and if he actually tested, then he might be getting top 32 left.
Oh, he, he would go round one. He, if he was, if he was not injured, he would go round one.
And the opposite end of, and so you can say, oh, we're getting a discount. Then the opposite end of that is, well, he's coming off a November ACL tear. He is. Uh, and didn't necessarily run a full route tree. Right. So, right. Yeah. This is the pick. You're either most likely to get promoted or fired as a scout. I can't tell you which life it's going to you're going to turn into. All I do know is you have a real seat at the table and it'll be interesting to watch.
But at least it's not Jalen Polk, you know, who, uh, has a cap ceiling and you're drafting a plug-and-play dude that you think is just a technician. And then when he doesn't do that, then he offers zero. Yeah. Zero. There's a lot of high-floor prospects that turn out have no floor.
All right. That does it. We're going to be posting wide receiver prospect videos all week long.