In the 2022 NFL Draft, 28 total receivers heard their name called, which was a slight drop from the four-year average. That number could be even lower this year, as the NFL is reportedly not high on this year’s wide receiver class and there’s not a consensus No. 1 guy.
In his Football Morning in America column, NBC Sports’ Peter King writes that the wide receivers are all bunched up at the top. From what King has heard from NFL teams, there doesn’t seem to be a clear-cut consensus on the top wide receivers in this class, as a number of prospects could come off the board first. That was the case with last year’s draft as well, though, four receivers — Drake London, Garrett Wilson, Chris Olave and Jameson Williams — were selected in the top 12 picks, something that seems unlikely to happen in 2023.
“One team thinks it’s nuts for Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba to be ranked ahead of USC’s Jordan Addison,” writes King. “Another team has BC’s Zay Flowers, the top-ranked wideout on the board. In short, we’re going to see some surprises at receiver on draft night.”
King doesn’t even mention TCU’s Quentin Johnson, Tennneseee’s Jalin Hyatt or UNC’s Josh Downs. Whether that was intentional or not, that trio of names doesn’t appear to be in the same discourse as Smith-Njigba, Addison or Flowers, though it only takes one team to change that.
It sure seems like we could be in for a wild NFL Draft.
