Kevin White might have the highest upside of any receiver in the NFL DraftBy Stephen White on Mar 17, 2015
Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY SportsRetired NFL defensive end Stephen White takes a closer look at West Virginia receiver Kevin White, who has the potential to be the best receiver in the 2015 NFL Draft. This is going to be my second breakdown of a wide receiver for this draft, and in this case it's going to be Kevin White out of West Virginia. For these purposes, of course I went over to Draft Breakdown to watch White play against Alabama, Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas and Texas A&M. Those represented the first, fourth, eighth, 11th and 14th games of West Virginia's season, respectively.OK, sooooooo, if you are reading this breakdown, then there's a high likelihood that you've already read my previous breakdown of Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper, which was written before the NFL combine. The funny thing about that column is that I was very complimentary of Cooper's skills and polish. The only knock I had on him was that he was probably a 4.5-plus guy in the 40 and average athleticism for a wide receiver. I wished Cooper good luck in proving me wrong and running a sub-4.5 and jumping out of the gym, but I still had several folks tweet at me demanding I print a correction after Cooper ran an official 4.42 at the combine:Yet, not a single soul tweeted at me to admit I was spot on about his athleticism after he notched a pretty damned pedestrian 33.5-inch vertical leap (mine was higher as a 275-pound defensive end at the time, and no I never used PEDs, asshole) and a measly 10 feet on the broad jump (I kinda think I bested that too, but I won't claim it because I'm not 100-percent sure).I didn't block a single one of you assholes who tweeted me about the 4.42, though I had half a mind to. Y'all forgot my @ that quick once Cooper went to do the on-field drills?Anyway, my point is Cooper really did help himself with the 4.42, even if that was about the only drill where he did so. He couldn't have helped himself much with the actual wide receiver drills because as I said in his breakdown, we already know that he is excellent at all that shit. He needed to exceed expectations with his natural ability to try and get back to the top of the wide receiver heap, and he did just that with his 40 time.But, here's the thing ...When I proposed Cooper getting back to the top of list with a strong workout, I forgot one of the life lessons I learned as an NFL player myself. It goes like this: Sometimes it doesn't matter how much better you get if your competition still gets better than you. You have no control over that.I learned that the hard way when I lost my starting spot one calendar year after earning it in my fourth season in the NFL. It wasn't that I did anything wrong, the guy behind me just went fucking berserk in the preseason. He was a former first-round pick who was every bit of 6'5 and 285 pounds, with no body fat who literally pushed his fucking Expedition around his neighborhood to train. The light bulb had finally come on for him about halfway through the prior season, and nothing short of me kneecapping him was going to stop him from overtaking me.Shit happens. #shrugs.I tell that story because that's kinda what happened with Kevin Smith last week at the combine. Yeah, folks were buzzing about Cooper's 4.42, (because, get this, I wasn't the only person with concerns about his straight-line speed) but once the smoke cleared a hell of a lot more folks were falling in love with White's 4.35-second 40 time, along with his 36.5-inch vertical, all while measuring in as being 2 inches taller than Cooper at 6'3:Again, shit happens #shrugs.I mean this shit couldn't have been scripted any more perfectly. White is definitely that prospect who is more athlete than receiver at this point. He wasn't asked to run many routes. Roughly nine times out of 10 in the five games I watched, he was lined up on the right side of the formation. His tape is the very definition of "raw," yet I'm damn near positive he is the guy (maybe only one of several) that talent evaluators will covet over the much-more-polished-but-less-athletic Cooper. Don't be mad at me for telling the truth. Dammit, I'm just the messenger. Trust me, I definitely don't think it's fair, but fair ain't got much to do with the draft, does it?:To read more....link
