Jerry Jeudy – Alabama – 6’1″ 192 lbs. – 4/24/99 (20 years old)
Jeudy is an amazing talent at the receiver position with a hefty tool bag. He’s more Amari or OBJ than Julio as skill sets go among top level wideouts.
- The calling card for Jeudy is his open field ability. The combination of his tools makes him a handful once he gets the ball. Crazy stop and go to shake defenders at the line, in close quarters, or in open space. Has great lateral ability as well, although, not as top level as his acceleration.
Could have gone with so different clips to display his stop and go ability. Either in the open field (like below) or during routes where he leaves the corner in the dust on shakes, slants, sluggos, just…everything.
- Take his acceleration, top end speed, and lateral ability that he displays in the open field and one can understand why he’s talented at creating space. He’s an above average route runner that utilizes the entire route tree and can perform against man or zone coverage.
- There are situations that arise where he could use a lateral move to make the defender miss or take an angle and try to outrun the guy, and he usually opts for the latter. The long speed is more than enough to just beat guys down the field as he has long strides that eat up yardage.
He shakes the corner early and sets him up with a nice jab step out before breaking in. The burst kicks in and he’s passed the linebacker sitting underneath and outruns the corner with a line to catch him. At the end, he could possibly cut back and beat the last guy, but instead, he just hits his last gear and tries to outrun everyone.
- There are no concerns about his receiving ability and he can go get it with the best of them. Comfortable catching the ball away from his body and reaches out for it rather than letting it get on him more often than not.
- Once he’s out in the route, he excels at locating and tracking the ball in the air down field. Whether he’s in the scramble drill or running an out, he works back toward the quarterback.
Now, he did drop the ball right before this on a slant…fakes out Jacoby Stevens (who he abused whenever he got matched up). Works back toward the pylon, and while he lets the ball get in on him a bit, part of that is the throw, which should be there sooner.
- Neither his blocking nor receiving abilities are in question, but there is a concern about his lack of dedication at times. At times, he can disappear from games and the effort goes along with it. However, let a corner say something to him or give him a cheap shot and IT IS ON. Hopefully, he can find a way to capture that same intensity and use it every down.
- The threat to go over the top is real for defensive backs and Jeudy tended to get cushion off the line fairly consistently. Alabama also did a good job of moving Jeudy around and using him in the screen/short passing game to get the ball in his hands. When he did line up against some of the better, more physical corners, there were times he got hung up and couldn’t get into his route properly.
- In his favor, while there were instances corners kept him at bay through a game, however, he usually still found a way to make a big play when the team needed it. While the numbers skew toward the first half, you can understand that Alabama doesn’t throw as much as the game progresses against most opponents.
- If you take college target share/involvement into account, there are some warning flags for Jeudy as my fellow ATL Razzballer Al_FF_red wrote.
- For my part, I’m less worried about his workload from college given the level of surrounding talent and offensive scheme that the Tide utilize. I’d be concerned if they didn’t spread the ball around because DeVonta Smith is the truth!
Little teaser for DeVonta Smith in 2021. He had already blown past Derek Stingley Jr. on the same route for a 64 yard gain.