{"id":139934,"date":"2023-04-07T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2023-04-07T13:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=139934"},"modified":"2023-04-04T23:37:01","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T03:37:01","slug":"michael-wilson-nfl-draft-profile-team-fits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/04\/07\/michael-wilson-nfl-draft-profile-team-fits\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Wilson NFL Draft Profile, Team Fits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Michael Wilson NFL Draft Overview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Position<\/strong>: Wide Receiver<br \/>\n<strong>Height<\/strong>: 6&#8242;-2&#8243;<br \/>\n<strong>Weight<\/strong>: 213 pounds<br \/>\n<strong>School<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/tag\/stanford-cardinal\/\" target=\"_self\">Stanford<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023-nfl-draft-profiles\/\" target=\"_self\"><em>More 2023 NFL Draft Profiles<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>2023 NFL Draft: Michael Wilson Scouting Report<\/h2>\n<p>After five injury-riddled campaigns with the Stanford Cardinals, wide receiver Michael Wilson has officially declared for the 2023 NFL Draft. The wide receiver&#8217;s final year at the collegiate level was something of a mixed bag, as injuries limited him to just four games. However, he managed to play a big role when on the field, hauling in 26 receptions for 418 yards and four touchdowns during his minimal playing time.<\/p>\n<p>Wilson originally entered the college football world as a four-star recruit. Signing with Stanford, the wide receiver played in 10 games as a true freshman before breaking out in 2019. As a sophomore, Wilson played in 12 games while recording 56 receptions for 672 yards and five touchdowns. Unfortunately, he was never able to replicate this performance, as injuries limited him to just a collective eight games over the next two seasons. In total, the Stanford product appeared in 36 games over his five-year college career, hauling in 134 receptions for 1,662 yards and 11 touchdowns.<\/p>\n<h3>Strengths<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Quick cuts at the top of his route to create separation;<\/li>\n<li>Big, strong player that&#8217;s tough to bring down after the catch;<\/li>\n<li>Stops on a dime and can change direction much quicker than the average player of his size;<\/li>\n<li>Can box out defenders and win contested catches;<\/li>\n<li>Knows how to find holes against zone coverage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Weaknesses<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>So, so many injuries &#8211; his body clearly does not like playing football;<\/li>\n<li>Smaller catch radius than you&#8217;d expect from a guy with his size;<\/li>\n<li>Struggles to get off the line aganist press coverage;<\/li>\n<li>Fifth-year Senior at a position where early declares tend to do a lot better;<\/li>\n<li>Unreliable hands &#8211; 12.5% drop rate per Pro Football Focus;<\/li>\n<li>Below-average speed for the position &#8211; won&#8217;t beat defenses deep.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>NFL Comparison:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/G\/GarcPi00.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pierre Garcon<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Teams With Need at Position<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/ravens\/\" target=\"_self\">Baltimore Ravens<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/panthers\" target=\"_self\">Carolina Panthers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/packers\" target=\"_self\">Green Bay Packers<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/chiefs\" target=\"_self\">Kansas City Chiefs<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/vikings\" target=\"_self\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/patriots\" target=\"_self\">New England Patriots<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/saints\" target=\"_self\">New Orleans Saints<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/giants\" target=\"_self\">New York Giants<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/titans\" target=\"_self\">Tennessee Titans<\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Bottom Line on Michael Wilson<\/h3>\n<p>Michael Wilson is one of the hardest evaluations of the 2023 NFL Draft, simply because it&#8217;s been so long since he&#8217;s played a full season. The fifth-year Senior looked a bit like his old self in 2022 and had a strong performance at the Senior Bowl, so hopefully, he can bounce back and regain his old skills.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Wilson is bigger and stronger than most wide receivers, and he possesses more lateral burst than you&#8217;d expect from a player his size. This allows him to get open on intermediate routes, and even when defenders stay close to him, he can still out-muscle them on accurate passes. While he isn&#8217;t the fastest, his large build also makes him hard to take down after the catch, so he can turn 12-yard gains into 17-yard pickups.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, there are a lot of red flags with Michael Wilson, most of which relate to his health. Generally speaking, injury histories are nothing but bad luck, as football is a violent sport and every single player is only one snap away from missing an extended period of time. However, seeing as Wilson missed significant action in three consecutive seasons, it&#8217;s worth wondering if his body can handle playing the game of football.<\/p>\n<p>Even if we assume a clean bill of health, Wilson still is far from the perfect prospect. As mentioned earlier, he is a larger guy, but he doesn&#8217;t know how to use his size. Wilson struggles to beat press coverage which, in theory, is fixable, but since he hasn&#8217;t done it yet, why should we believe that he can figure it out in the NFL? Additionally, he struggles to adjust to off-target passes, which normally isn&#8217;t an issue for larger receivers. This lack of catch radius combined with his pedestrian speed limits him to being a short and intermediate threat.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, if Michael Wilson stays healthy, he could probably carve out a role as a complementary part of a passing attack. However, that is a\u00a0<em>BIG<\/em> &#8220;if&#8221;, so don&#8217;t be surprised if teams aren&#8217;t willing to take on that risk.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: Kirby Lee &#8211; USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wide receiver Michael Wilson enters the 2023 NFL Draft after battling through injuries throughout his five years at Stanford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2376,"featured_media":139935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1647],"tags":[7811,9807,7661,7638,7659],"class_list":["post-139934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-draft","tag-chiefs-featured","tag-michael-wilson","tag-panthers-featured","tag-ravens-featured","tag-saints-featured"],"modified_by":"David Latham, Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2376"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}