Transcription
This is Texas A&M wide receiver Casey Conpsion. He's the best route runner in the draft class. If you want to watch him against Mansor Delane and Brandon Cece, both in the SEC, he was absolutely flying by them. He runs like the wind, and that's either down the field or with the ball in his hands. Of course, that is when he actually catches the football.
Just under 6 feet tall, 196 pounds, he will turn 22 years of age during his rookie season. He did spend two years at NC State, then moved on up to Texas A&M this year. Posted a cool 919 yards and nine touchdowns on 61 catches this past season. You have to respect his speed on every single play if you're on the defensive side of the ball. I mean, his speed just looks different out there. It's like when he's running these in-breakers, these digs, a race car, bending the corner, and then accelerating again with the ball in his hands. It leads to some huge yak gains when the DB whiffs or maybe misestimates their angles.
Yeah, I think he's got a little bit of jitterbug to him, but a lot of the speed is just what takes over there. And you can see that like instantly right after his releases, which are really in control and not selling. I think that he can play in control like that because he knows he just has the afterburners where he doesn't have to be Mr. Dance at the line of scrimmage. He just wins immediately. Could stack guys down the football field. You saw a great rep against Cece and went up and caught the ball at the catch point, took on a big hit. There were a couple other times yards after catch-wise where he's fighting, too. So, he's not like a big receiver. He's at least like that 190 pounds, but that one touchdown where he caught the ball at the 5-yard line and threw a couple guys off of him. I just really liked his fight for his size. So, he's not like some like 175-pound speed demon type. He's got a little bit more than that in terms of his physical profile.
I feel like this video could be 30 minutes. I am mildly obsessed with Casey Conpsion. I actually feel like some of the underlying metrics that are being flown out there and along with his speed kind of maybe misinterpret him as a pass catcher when you watch him. Yeah.
He has a complete game to him. Like I understand the speed. We're going to talk about it all the time. His burst is, I think, next level, and you know Texas A&M and the NFL team that he goes to is going to do a good job of getting him those free releases in terms of motions, in terms of stacks, because you can really weaponize it. Then there are also dozens, and I mean dozens of reps as a static wide receiver versus a tight corner, and again, he wins with his releases. He wins with lean during his routes, and he leans again with that deception during his routes as well. And I understand the drop rate. It's very high, like 11% this past season. But at the same time, Hayden, I see him pluck the ball off his frame instantly and turn into a runner. I see difficult grabs where he throws his shoulder away, the momentum that is carrying him towards the sideline. And again, he, in one fluid motion, tucks that ball and makes a spectacular grab. And then there are these other reps where again, he fends off contact five yards down the field, gets an inside stem release pass, and then versus single high, this ball is a lollipop down the field, and the safety only has his eyes on Casey Conpion, and Casey Conpion only has his eyes on the duck that's being floated out there on the field. Down with this massive catch along with a big hit. So again, you can say, not you, but just the people out there can say, "Well, he has questionable hands." When I watch him, right, I see dozens of reps where he has spectacular hands.
I saw the same thing. Catching the ball over the shoulder at his speed is very hard to do down the football field. He's able to do that. There were some contested catches as well. I think some other players like in this range, in the round one range, I think that they have some spectacular grabs, but also when they take a hit, the ball can kind of pop off, and I don't see that necessarily with Conpsion. I think I counted like seven drops when I went back and watched all of his targets. I think equal parts concentration and sometimes maybe you can say that he doesn't have the best hands technique working over the middle. I just think that's a trait with his skills that's just going to get developed a little bit, and he, he's fully acknowledged the concentration of them. He dropped a couple touchdowns, no doubt about it. Um, I just think that is generally a skill that can get improved upon, especially when I see so many other reps where he's working across the field, catches the ball, like you say, and the ball's in his pocket, and he's running down the football field instantaneously. So, I don't think he has like an alligator arms problem or anything like that. I just think, you know, if it instead of it was seven drops, it was four drops, no one even talks about this. And I think this kind of small sample size stuff is something that I'm not ignoring, but of all the problems a receiver can have, it's very low on like the totem pole of like my actual concern.
And do drops stand out in our minds the most, especially when we play fantasy football and it's for a touchdown, and you know we see it on red zone, and that's the one highlight get that gets thrown around 100%. But at the same time, we need to understand that one, drops are also, you know, a person's opinion out there that's charting the game. Uh, and two, what about the other, you know, 60 snaps that he has in a game versus the one singular? And that can also improve. It's not like those are sticky every single year. Those can change every single year. The other part, an aspect that I think is underrated about his game is his toughness. You brought it up. He is sub-200 lbs, but man, he finishes on these catches. His yak on final contact is there in terms of he wants to split two tacklers that are waiting for him. There was, you know, this one play versus Mississippi State that they start too high, they rotate into single high. He's at the X again, stationary. He's running a deep out by about 30 yards. He bends it inside to create even more of a gap for his quarterback to throw the football to. Again, he creates that separation. The ball is once again late by about a second. He still catches it three yards short of the goal line and simply carries the tackler into the end zone like you see with Johnny Bananas on his backpack.
Yeah, I love that. What he does with his size to again fight for extra yards. And we'll get into some true ball carrier stuff here in a little bit is something that shocked me because I didn't see enough people talk about.
Yeah. And I think that's where like when I, we obviously recorded a video with Mai Lemon. I do think one thing that immediately stands out between the two is Casey Conpsion after the catch versus Mai Lemon. I do think Mai Lemon's decent at it, but Casey, Casey Conpsion just has a different athletic gear than Mai Lemon does. And I think at the catch point, surviving some of the toughness stuff, I think that's where Casey Conpsion stands out versus someone like Jordan Tyson. Obviously, those kind of three are going to be grouped together based off of the kind of height and weight. Uh, I just think that the more well-rounded player right now is actually Casey Conpsio when I'm trying to translate this to the next level. And I think that, like you said, 71 yards per game with the quarterback play that he was dealing with, I, I count that as a win. Like he dominated as a freshman at NC State at 89 yards per game. I think that with better quarterback play, there was a lot more production available for him. And like you said, that comes with him standing on the line of scrimmage against some of the best corners in the draft class. Like I thought that he handled himself very well against South Carolina and LSU in particular. And both those guys are going to be top 40 picks. And if you brought up our video on Mail and everyone knows that in that one, I kind of questioned his performance against Notre Dame and kind of some fits.
Guess what Casey Conception did against Notre Dame?
I mean, he torched him. The ball didn't go to him in all these cases, but he created a ton of separation against one of the best defensive backfields out there. And then, you know, I love to talk about Mansour Delane only allowing, you know, 13 catches this entire season. There were other times that Casey Conpsion created quite a bit of separation and was open and did not get the football against Mansor Lane and what his four whatever 3.8 40. Uh, this is top-level competition that Casey Conpsion stepped up to, and he dealt with all comers and did a fantastic job week in and week out.
Yeah, I added my notes like if Manso Delane's like a what, four flat corner, I mean, Casey Conpsion is easily a four-three player in terms of the 40-yard dash. So, we don't have that verified yet as we're recording this, but it's not just the reps of him winning down the football field. There was that 50-yard screen touchdown against Missouri, which absolutely gets him in the screen game. Like, that's an easy, easy staple here. And then the special teams stuff. I'm not sure if you saw the the kick return ability against LSU. I mean, that was one of the silliest reps I've ever seen. I mean, that was outrageous, outrageous speed from Casey Conpsio. I think it's like a four-three player with toughness. We talked about that he can run all the routes and stuff like this. This to me is like the guy in the draft class that is checking to me a ton of boxes.
Yeah. Here's a question. What if you got Jaylen Wadd with two extra inches and 15 pounds on his frame?
Is that how much bigger he is? Yeah.
Two inches taller, 15 pounds heavier than what Jaylen Wadd was coming out of Alabama. And to me, how they would line up for an NFL team is nearly identical. Albeit, we've seen Conpion even line up more on the line of scrimmage as a stationary player, even more. And I see the same juice. I see the same ability to anticipate an angle and make these defenders play and and whiff in the open field to read his block to the ball carrier. Jaylen Wadd, that name is important here because again, I mentioned the transfer from NC State to Texas A&M.
His wide receiver coach at A&M, Holman Wiggins, was Alabama's wide receiver coach from 2019 to 2023. A few of the names during that span: Devonte Smith, Jaylen Wadd, Jameson Williams, Henry Ruggs, Jerry Judy, John Mechy, etc., etc. That's a pretty darn good type of, you know, instructor to learn from, to progress under. And the progression even goes back to his freshman year at NC State. Hey, did you know he had 40 carries as a freshman at NC State? And these were legit carries. He was next to the quarterback in shotgun. He took Wildcat stuff. Yeah, there were some reverses here and there, but he had to read the blocks in front of him and was doing it at a high level and still averaged over seven yards a pop on those 40 carries as a true freshman.
Man, I know it's like I'm looking through my notes, I'm like, I didn't have many cons. Like obviously the the the drops were like the big con. I wish he was bigger, obviously, but he's big enough to be in two wide receiver sets, and there were so many reps of him winning on the line of scrimmage, sometimes even at X receiver, that I don't even think that I can complain about the size too much. So yeah, you can make an argument that he has absolutely a path to being the best wide receiver in this draft. To me, I think that the consensus rankings where he's a round one, two fringe player, I think that's underselling him. I had him really close to Mai Lemon in my initial rankings. Going back and watching these guys, like I really need to make sure that I have the right guy at one, two, and three. I think these three stand out. I, I'm not sure that Casey Conpsion is not actually the best. If anyone wants to rank Casey Conception as the wide receiver one in this class, I do not begrudge you in the least.
Um, I think he's like number 28 overall in consensus rankings right now.
Oh man.
I think he's going to go closer to 15 overall than he is 28 overall, and it might not even last until 15 based. I mean, his competitiveness is freaking off the charts. Yeah.
Um, there's a couple more things I want to hit on here. By the way, over the last 28 days, 45% of you who watch this channel are not subscribed. So, if you made it this far in the video, hit that subscribe button because we have all of these wide receiver prospect profiles that we're going through right now. Uh, some cool things about Conception. My man loves a mailbox. Uh, there was one play where when he wins off the line, within seven yards of his route, he notices that single high, he knows he's burned the guy behind him. He is mailboxing the hell out of his quarterback and be like, "Hey, throw it 20 yards in front of me. I'm going to have this as a 27-yard gain." Also faces press in the slot, uh, at the at the goal line. Again, shrugs off, uses his hands to create that separation, and instead of just continuing on his route, he does a little hop and a little wave like, "Hey, I'm going to be wide open." And yes, of course, he ends up with the ball in his hands for for a touchdown. He's just a cool ass guy.
He's so fun. He's so, you know, he's awesome. And even at the NFL combine, um, you know, I'm sure many of you out there noticed his podium session and whatever interviews that he did. He has a speech impediment, a stutter. He is not keeping that from speaking out in public and with media and with interviews. He said, quote, "I want to be a role model for those who are not able to speak in front of large crowds." And then whatever you hear about at Texas A&M, he was the leader of this group in just one season in just his third year. Uh, again, I am mildly obsessed with Casey Conception this year.
That's what I've read about him as well that everyone loves the guy. He was a leader immediately, film junkie, all those type of things. And yeah, I, I see him the same way, man. I, I'm beginning to question why I just don't have him closer to wide receiver one in this draft class. I had him 16th overall in my my official my initial rankings, and there's just not that many cons to his game. I don't know. And then like it was cool to see Matt Harmon on his reception perception he posted and stuff. It's just like green, green everywhere. And I saw that the same thing. It's full route tree. Like everything is on the table: inside, outside, down the field, underneath. Uh, the return stuff is just a little ingredient on the top of it. He looks absolutely special like that. So yeah, I didn't, I hadn't thought about the Jaylen Waddle comparison. I think that is a good one. I had, um, Stefon Diggs, so I just like he was so good in his prime of beating guys, uh, initially at the line of scrimmage and then had enough speed to stack it. I see a lot of the same things with Casey Conpsio.
Yeah. And and even Diggs early in his career at Maryland was very much like this in terms of winning after the catch, and then he suffered like a horrific leg break, and maybe that kind of slowed him down, and it forced him to be a bit more nuanced in his route and storytelling, and then you got the complete package once he entered the league. Yeah. I mean, two punt return touchdowns this past year. Like, what is that?
You guys have to watch. If you guys, if you guys have not seen the the returns, you have to go find those. I mean, maybe this is ambitious, but I wrote Brandon Cooks as a floor. And we know like Brandon Cooks has been traded for like multiple league. And he's also one of these guys. He's been traded. Everyone loves the guy. He's like, he's such a good locker room guy that every team wants him. It's not that he has to keep changing teams because he's some a-hole. So good.
I wrote, "What if Cory Coleman was good?"
There's Casey Conception. That's a big.
Yeah. I mean, he just runs all the routes, too, from every single alignment at this point. Wins with the ball in his hands. The only negative that really came up other than like the true drop rate out there, and maybe this is a factor in that, is sometimes he unnecessarily leaves his feet. Like he does these slight jumps when he catches the football rather than kind of staying grounded. Now, again, his acceleration kind of makes up for that, and this doesn't happen at all times, but that was almost the one negative that crept up here. I could not find another, and he was productive this year. He could have been even more productive if the ball went his way when he was open every single.
Yeah, I had that same note was half concentration, half the times tracking the ball over the middle. Just things got a little bit kind of caught up on him a little bit too much. I think that's leaving your feet is a sign that you don't fully trust your hands. So he's said he's working on it.
21.
I saw him in the gauntlet. He didn't drop the ball in the gauntlet drill. I know that was there's a lot of pressure on him because of that. Um, so yeah, I see, I see, I see a really high upside for Casey Conpsion. Really fun player on top of it.
Turns 22 this fall. Uh, anyways, at some point, Hayden and I will do our wide receiver rankings for this entire class. Um, we'll probably have them pretty close now after this conversation. So if you enjoy this one, we've got a ton more prospect profiles here for the 2026 NFL draft. Go watch one, and we'll see you over.