Coming out of Arizona State University at 6’4″ and 213 pounds is wide receiver, N’Keal Harry. Harry has been productive during his time with the Sun Devils. He was only a sophomore last year but still managed to record 659 yards and five touchdowns last season. While these aren’t the most eye-popping stats, he demonstrates that he is a much more complete receiver upon further film study.
How N’Keal Harry Could Be an Ideal Receiver in the NFL
Hands/Catching
Truly one of Harry’s strong points in his game is the manner in which he constantly wins with his natural strong hands. Harry has the unbelievable ability to be a monster with congested catches, winning them way more than losing.
As a receiver, there are many times you are asked to come down with contested catches or jump balls. So far in Harry’s short-lived career, he has been able to constantly show he can do this. Of course, a lot of this is because of his lack of superb route running on his part.
Harry has an innate ability to process the field very well. This allows him to track the ball when it is in the air very well. He always gets under the ball and has the impressive catch radius to highpoint and grab the ball when it is in his general vicinity.
Separation
As a receiver, there are a few different ways you can create separation. While there are many ways you can break down separation, the two biggest ways are through route-running and through the air. Harry has certain traits that cause him to excel at a little bit of both.
While he does need to learn to get more defined in his route running, Harry makes very good use of his route speed variations. Quite simply put, Harry incorporates different variations of his speed at certain parts of his route to help create separation between him and the defensive back he is across from. Often, he will accelerate out of his route break or at the top of his route. This allows him a window of space for the quarterback to get him the ball.
Harry also has the innate ability to constantly win on 50/50 balls. A 50/50 ball is a term that examines a receiver’s ability to win jumps balls in the air. There are many factors that go into 50/50 balls from the quarterback, wide receiver and cornerbacks side of the ball. However, if a receiver fails to consistently come down with these balls it could point to some other issues that won’t translate from the college level to the pros for one reason or another.
In Harry’s case, however, he can catch any ball that is thrown in his vicinity because of his strong natural hands and A-plus ball tracking ability. This ability makes him a treat on all three levels of the field.
Route-Running and Release
Well, we have talked about the positives, now it’s time for the negatives with Harry’s game. Above I discussed how Harry uses speed variations to his advantage in his route running. While this is beneficial for him right now, he will have to improve his route-running to allow him to get open more often. At this point, Harry looks to be very unrefined in his routes and route breaks. Harry also will need to have gained more experience with the route tree, running only a select few numbers of routes at Arizona State.
At the beginning of any route is a wide receiver’s release off the line of scrimmage. This is a very important part to any one’s game. Having a great release can help give you the momentum needed to create more separation or adjust to gain an advantage over the defensive back. Having a poor release can cause the receiver to be thrown off his route or cause his to have to play catch up to where he was supposed to be.
This is another area where Harry struggles greatly in. Off the snap, he lacks the necessary strength needed to beat press corners. He needs to improve on his hand usage and swatting away a corners hands then transitioning into his route.
Last Word
Even though Harry hasn’t produced big numbers throughout his college career so far, he looks to have the traits you want for a high-end NFL receiver. Like every prospect, he does still have holes in his game and things he needs to improve on but if we continue to see the improvement he could elevate into what many NFL teams call a blue-chip prospect. (A blue-chip prospect refers to those prospects that enter the draft every once in a few years who could be an elite player at the next level based on their skill set they provide). Harry has a good chance to get to that level with after another year of playing the position and progressing.
Overall Harry has the hands, body control, and contested catch ability to excel at the next level. While he does have a way to go in his route-running and release those are things he can continue to develop as time goes on.
