A lot of NFL Draft nerds are singing the praises of Alabama Crimson Tide wideout Amari Cooper, but it can be argued that West Virginia Mountaineer Kevin White deserves just as much respect, if not more.
Both players are a lock to be first round picks but as I stated in a previous article, picking which man is better simply depends on what a team looking for a wide receiver wants out of the position.
Regarding White, he is the man your team picks if you want an immediate impact receiver who can use both size and speed as he becomes an integral part of an offense.
That being said, with Draft Day just four days away, let’s take a look at White and see just how well he could do on the professional level and which player he is most like.
Strengths:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpNVPq2XUKo
White has many strengths, one of which is great size for his position. At 6’3″, 215 pounds, he has the length and strength needed to take his game to the next level and go up for balls that could be harder to catch in coverage. On top of that, he has the upper body strength to make defensive backs bounce off him like water off a duck’s back. This strength made an appearance at the NFL Scouting Combine, where White completed 23 reps at the bench press.
Apart from his size, White’s greatest asset is his speed and his ability to accumulate yards after the catch. He wrapped up his senior season in Morgantown with 109 catches for 1,447 yards and 10 touchdowns, and averaged 13.3 yards per reception. To give a better idea, reigning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year and former LSU Tiger Odell Beckham Jr. averaged 14.3 yards per reception last season. That was not anywhere close to De’Sean Jackson’s league-best 20.1 per reception, but it gives an idea of what one could expect from White, though he’s bigger and stronger than Beckham.
Once this young man gets the ball, he goes into what I like to call Roadrunner Mode. He just turns on the afterburners and becomes incredibly hard to bring down, a skill that every team looks for in a No. 1 wide receiver. Simply put, whichever team drafts White, they’re going to be VERY happy that they did.
Weaknesses:
One thing all receivers have to do every so often is act as blockers. On the NFL level, White is going to struggle in that department. As big and strong as he is, he looks like a lost puppy when not running receiving routes or in a position where he can demand the ball. This isn’t a skill that can necessarily be cured with coaching alone, so White is going to have to spend some time in the video room and study matchups so that he can learn how to improve this part of his game.
On top of that, White is a flat-footed runner. Unless he learns to keep his momentum forward on the balls of his feet and learn to juke and spin away from defenders, rather than run heel to toe and allow himself to be taken down easily, he’s going to have a tough time adjusting to the pros. Fortunately, this can be fixed with coaching and drills. It may take him a few games to get this into his repertoire, but it’s not a part of his game that is so beyond repair that it’s going to be a problem from the get-go.
Final Thoughts and Pro Comparison:
I look at Kevin White, and the first player I think of is 2004 first round pick and eight-time Pro Bowler Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals. Both men are similarly built, and Fitzgerald was notorious for getting himself open and running towards the end zone with breakneck speed in the prime of his career. He doesn’t have a Super Bowl ring, but is far from finished at age 31. With 909 receptions for 12,151 yards and 89 touchdowns to his name, he’s a lock for the Hall of Fame. For White to be compared to Fitzgerald is a huge compliment to his skillset.
But this compliment also has the other side of the coin. Like Fitzgerald, White’s success will likely be determined by the amount of talent the quarterback throwing to him has. To give a better idea, in each of Fitzgerald’s Pro Bowl seasons, the quarterbacks throwing to him were as follows: Kurt Warner, Carson Palmer, and then a multitude of players including Derek Anderson, Kevin Kolb, John Skelton and too many other glorified backups to count. Sure enough, half of Fitzgerald’s Pro Bowls came with Warner throwing to him, another with Palmer, and the other three can probably be attributed to half dumb luck and half him being a freakishly good athlete.
White isn’t as strong an athlete as Fitzgerald, but the similar skillsets are there. Once he fully adjusts to the NFL, he’s going to be a special kind of player.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
