School: LSU

Position: WR

Year: Junior

The Good: Malik Nabers is young, feisty, and turbo charged. He’s just about as explosive as it gets at the wide receiver position with extremely rare 0-to-60 burst. It’s evident that Nabers is a plus athlete with major hops on tape, and he backed it up with a ludicrous 42” vertical jump (97th percentile). I love Nabers’ feel for exploiting zone coverages, and he basically has the vision of a running back once you get the ball into his hands. It’s not all that difficult to get the ball into Nabers’ hands, either. He can line up from anywhere – he’s a mismatch out of the slot at his solid size – and he knows how to sink his body to earn separation versus shallow man coverage. Nabers’ best level of the field might be the deepest third, though. He has a second gear for late separation on deep routes, and his statistical deep production is bankable at the next level; he wins deep with both craft and natural skill. Nabers is very physical at the catch point for his good yet not overwhelming size, and he has strong and quick hands that he can flash late against tighter coverage.

The Bad: It makes sense for a wideout like Nabers who plays like Sonic the Hedgehog, but it’s worth calling out that he lacks some route precision and has wasted movement at the line of scrimmage; his releases aren’t consistently deliberate enough yet. It’s part of the joy of Nabers’ game that he’s such a ball of energy, but that sometimes reckless play style isn’t always what you want from your offense’s WR1. Nabers’ hands won’t be a talking point as a pro, but when you’re dissecting them in comparison to his peers in this draft class, Nabers has an ordinary catch radius, fairly common focus drops, and inconsistency tracking the ball into his hands. He has a tendency to body catch, especially on quick hitting routes. His league-average size certainly isn’t an issue – in some capacity it’s a godsend when looking back on the influx of tiny wideout prospects in recent years – but the reality is that Nabers won’t force NFL DBs off their spots. And, fair or not based on his reputation, I kinda expected Nabers to be more of a tackle breaker than he is; he should post gaudy YAC numbers but that’ll be by nature of his acceleration.

The Bottom Line: It’s stupid that I feel defensive of my evaluation of Malik Nabers when I think he’s awesome and still have a damn high grade on him; I just would rank him in the tier beneath Marvin Harrison Jr and Rome Odunze. I’m not entirely sold on some reasons behind his success in that LSU offense being wholly translatable, and I’m just not as confident in Nabers’ progression into an NFL WR1 like I am with those other two guys. Yes, it’s definitely a possible outcome, and that best-case scenario is where the Ja’Marr Chase comparisons are fair. But Chase and Odell Beckham Jr are the only 6 ‘0-and-below wideouts this century to post a 1,200-yard campaign before their Age-24 season. (They each did it twice.) For comparison, 19 receivers taller than 6’0 have pulled that off since 2000. Malik Nabers will still be 20 years old when he’s drafted, so his first three pro seasons will fit that bill. Maybe he’ll turn that into a trend for LSU alumni in the league, or maybe he’ll just be a really good option for an offense though not quite a superstar. 

Grade: Top 10 Pick

Pro Comp: Jeremy Maclin

For anyone who thinks that comp is too low for Nabers…

1. Grow up; every single highly-touted NFL Draft prospect can’t pan out as an All-Pro.
2. Jeremy Maclin was a very, very good NFL player! He retired early but he was an uber-athletic, consistently productive wideout right from the start of his career.

Games Watched:

• Florida State 2022
• Tennessee 2022
• Georgia 2022 (SEC Championship Game)
• Purdue 2022 (Citrus Bowl)
• Florida State 2023
• Mississippi State 2023
• Arkansas 2023
• Missouri 2023
• Auburn 2023
• Alabama 2023
• Florida 2023
• Texas A&M 2023

Plays That Matter [LINK]