Monday Rewind: Drake London as WR1, Combine winners, and more

Welcome back to the Monday Rewind. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Let’s dive in.

Drake London is WR1

The Megatron-lite wideout from USC won’t say it so I will:

He’s the best wide receiver available in the upcoming NFL Draft. Don’t believe the “London hurt his stock by not participating at the Combine” buzz for a second. London participated in the interview portion of the 2022 NFL Scouting Combine, but with his ankle at 85% (his words), he didn’t take part in any on-field workouts. The California native measured in at 6-foot-4 with 33-inch arms and 9.375-inch hands.

Few wideouts at the Combine matched London’s combination of size and length. North Dakota State’s Christian Watson (6-foot-4, 32.5-inch arms, 10.125-inch hands) had himself an excellent Combine, as did Cincy wideout Alec Pierce (6-foot-3, 33-inch arms), but neither has the pedigree of London.

Let’s not overcomplicate this, even though we’re well into the period of the NFL calendar where nothing is simple and everything is over-analyzed.

London was asked by reporters at the Combine last week if he felt like he was the best receiver in the class.

“All of us are pretty versatile in our own way,” he responded. “I can’t really say who’s the best. We all have our different types of tools.”

He was asked what it would mean to be the first receiver picked.

“It would definitely be special but I’m just hoping to get picked at the end of the day,” he said.

London got the biggest smiles when he was asked about former teammates who have already broken into the league, like Detroit Lions wideout Amon-Ra St. Brown and New York Jets offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker. There was a brief and genuine moment early where he recognized a USC football staffer in the crowd while stepping to the dais and flashed a quick wave.

Something small, but something genuinely cool. “Very soft-spoken,” his former high school coach told Gilbert Manzano of The OC Register. Teams are going to really enjoy talking to him. Just a real good-natured young man. You would never know … how big-time he is because he never draws attention to himself. They’ll find a very unassuming, good-natured, humble individual. He’s kinda reserved, but very polite.” That’s the kind of personality that’ll do very well in interview settings.

Now you look at his USC numbers.

A fractured ankle forced him to miss a third of USC’s season and he still finished as the Pac-12’s leader in receptions, yardage, 20-plus-yard receptions, and contested catches (per PFF). At the rate London was going before his injury, he would have ended a full season ranked…

• 2nd nationally in receptions
• 3rd nationally in yardage

… all while leading the country in contested catches—he had 19 in eight games, a pace for 28.5 when no one else in the country had more than 16. London was a reliable target on any down-and-distance. He was a big-play, throw-it-up kind of weapon every time he was on the field.

The ankle is healing. He told reporters that he just recently started running on it. According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, London is expected to hold his own pro day workout on April 5 in Los Angeles. He’ll test and do positional drills, per Graziano. Teams want to see him run a 40, but whatever that time might end up being shouldn’t preclude him from being the top receiver on the board come Round 1 next month.

“He’s a beast,” St. Brown told MLive’s Kyle Meinke. “The tape speaks for itself—6-4, 6-5, go up and make the big play. When I was there, I remember him being a freshman. He’s progressed each and every year, which is nice to see because when he first got there he was just a raw talent. Then sophomore year he got better. Junior year, you guys saw what he did this year. It’s unfortunate he got hurt, but I don’t think it’s going to affect him one bit.”

London smiled at the prospect of teaming up with St. Brown in Detroit and playing together again. According to Meinke, the Lions would like to add two receivers from the 2022 Draft and swing for a guy at the top of the board. To get London would probably require Detroit to make a trade—they own picks No. 2 and 32—as London doesn’t figure to hang around too long.

But if the Lions did make a play for London, the comparisons to Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson would no doubt come into play. London told reporters at the Combine he modeled some of his game after Megatron, whom he called “definitely one of the greatest.”

Johnson measured in at 6-foot-5 with slightly longer arms and slightly bigger hands during his NFL Combine appearance in 2007. He also ran a 4.38 40 at the event. There were only seven wideouts at the Combine this year who hit that time. Maybe London doesn’t, but teams might be expecting that already.

The book on London is a pretty simple one:

Here’s a guy every defensive coordinator in America knew was going to be fed the football. And no one USC played could stop him from converting targets into receptions. Among guys who saw at least 100 targets (52 players), London was top-10 in reception rate. Had he not gotten hurt, London would have been the deserved Biletnikoff winner.

Here’s a guy every person who watched him play knows will be the next in an impressive line of USC receivers jumping to the league and enjoying success.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Even though London won’t say it publicly, his game will tell you plainly he’s the best wideout in the class.

Other winners from the NFL Combine

Full results from participating Pac-12 players at the Combine can be found here. Now, the concept of “winners” and “losers” at an event like this seems inherently slanted against guys viewed as the top prospects because the bar for them to clear to impress is so much higher. A guy like Christian Watson, who few were able to watch at North Dakota State, can explode onto the scene because no one knows who he is. A guy like Treylon Burks, the Arkansas wideout who had a disappointing 40 time, can “hurt his stock” because you expected him to compete to be the best guy on the field.

All that being said, there were a couple of Pac-12 guys who emerged from the event as clear winners.

One of them was UCLA tight end Greg Dulcich, who got near-unanimous love from national folks at the Combine.

Nick Shook, a writer at NFL.com, had this to say on Dulcich when placing him on the 2022 All-Combine Team:

“Dulcich did everything right Thursday night: gauntlet, the various route drills, and he ran a solid 4.69 40-yard dash. The skills and success from his game film at UCLA were evident on the field in Indianapolis, as Dulcich was just better than the rest of a class that has some sneaky depth to be found in the later rounds.”