I think Terry McLaurin will be one of the draft’s biggest steals

There’s so much to love about his potential, no matter how many receivers got more targets in Columbus.

Advanced stats say Ohio State’s Terry McLaurin is one of the best receivers in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Among FBS receivers in this class, McLaurin was first in 2018 in Marginal Efficiency, the advanced stat by SB Nation’s Bill Connelly that measures how successful a throw to a receiver is based on the down and distance. (For instance, a 10-yard completion on third-and-8 is more efficient than a 12-year completion on third-and-20.) He was seventh in the class in Marginal Explosiveness, which similarly measures how successful his successful targets are. Nobody fared better in both departments.

Traditional numbers like McLaurin a lot, too.

He caught 71 percent of his targets, ninth-best in the class. He averaged 14.3 yards per target, No. 1 in the class. He caught 11 touchdowns, tied for sixth-most. It helped to play in an elite Ohio State offense quarterbacked by Dwayne Haskins, but there’s no statistical indicator that McLaurin’s anything other than a star.

But he’s not going to be a Day 1 or maybe even Day 2 pick. While McLaurin drew positive reviews out of the Senior Bowl in January, he’s lagged behind a bunch of his peers in draft hype. NFL.com’s scouting report says he has backup or special teams potential.

NFL Combine testing likes him a lot, too.

Maybe that’ll go up some after McLaurin ran a 4.35-second 40-yard dash at the combine (fifth among receivers), repped 18 times on the bench (tied for 10th), and broad-jumped 125 inches (tied for ninth). At 6’, his measureables and athletic testing are closely aligned with some good players (like Pierre Garcon) and some bad (like Breshad Perriman). But he’s certainly one of the most athletic players in the class.

McLaurin, a former four-star recruit, didn’t turn into a star until his senior year at Ohio State. That’s when the Buckeyes started slinging the rock.

From 2015-17, he wasn’t a big part of the Ohio State passing game, and the passing game itself wasn’t a big part of the Ohio State offense. With QB J.T. Barrett, the Buckeyes’ identity was to spread teams out with occasional passes and then run through them. The Buckeyes’ top pass-catchers those years were future All-Pro Michael Thomas, running back Curtis Samuel, and then a committee of three receivers that included McLaurin.

In 2017, McLaurin caught 29 of 44 targets for 436 yards (9.9 per target). He was Ohio State’s fourth-most targeted receiver, just one target behind the No. 3 guy.

In 2018, McLaurin was still the Buckeyes’ fourth-most-targeted receiver, only this time, there was a much bigger gap between the three top targets and him. He got 49 targets, about half of what top targets Parris Campbell and K.J. Hill got. But McLaurin’s yardage per target rose 40 percent, from 10 to 14. He was one of the most efficient wideouts in the country, though he wasn’t getting nearly as many chances as Campbell, Hill, and Johnnie Dixon.

McLaurin has to have been the best No. 4 receiver in college football history.

Did McLaurin benefit from having tons of talent around him? For sure. But there are lessons in his success for a smart NFL team.

It wasn’t just Haskins and a group of future pros at receiver. The Buckeyes also fully turned over their offense to coordinator (and now head coach) Ryan Day, a Chip Kelly alum who introduced a spread passing game Ohio State had literally never used before. One concept, in particular, came to define the Ohio State offense in McLaurin’s senior year.

“Coach Day definitely brought the mesh series to our offense,” he told me at the NFL Combine. “That was different from years past.”

Mesh involves two receivers running drag routes across the field, going past each other in tight proximity. It looks something like this:

Ian Boyd

The object, like a pick in basketball, is to create a brief traffic jam for the defense and give at least one receiver separation. In 2018, McLaurin made hay running variations of Mesh.

The concept is great in the red zone, because it stresses defenses horizontally rather than vertically. Among others, McLaurin scored Ohio State’s first touchdown of the season on it:

At some point, Ohio State started running other things off Mesh, and McLaurin was really good on those, too. A common variation is the “whip” route, where the receivers who look like they’re about to cross instead pivot and head back toward their near sidelines.

Often, McLaurin would line up elsewhere, and when the threat of mesh crossers held a safety in the middle of the field, he’d beat single coverage in another area ...

... or sitting down in a soft spot created by others’ mesh routes:

A good playbook and talent around him certainly boosted McLaurin’s senior year numbers. But NFL teams run similar stuff, and McLaurin’s not a slouch. He also helped the Buckeyes around him. People who watched Ohio State closely over his career regard him as an excellent blocker for a receiver, not afraid of doing the grunt work depth receivers do. He plays in the slot, and he plays outside. He can be useful all over the field.

That’s another thing: McLaurin clearly benefitted from OSU’s talent and scheme, but he proved he had plenty of skill himself.

His favorite play is not Mesh. It’s a simple post pattern against cover-4.

“The way we had one of our concepts, we’d have an over route, or something to occupy that safety,” McLaurin said, talking about his side of the field. “So I’m one-on-one with that corner nine times out of 10 on a cover-4. That’s what you want as a receiver.”

One example of that working perfectly, thanks to McLaurin acrobatics:

He can also run deep routes and fight through extreme contact to make catches:

McLaurin’s ability to beat single coverage might come from something he’s widely praised for: his work as a gunner in punt coverage.

“One thing the scouts said, how they could tell I beat press coverage really well, is off of gunner,” McLaurin said. “They watched my gunner film, and they noticed that I never got held up, so that was a pretty good indication of how I could beat press man.”

He made the highlight-reel gunner play of the year at Michigan State ...

... and downed another OSU punt at the MSU 1 later in the same game.

The worst case for McLaurin is that he’s a good special teamer who can make some plays as a No. 4 receiver and blocks well, like he did at Ohio State.

Another possible case is that he’s a good special teamer who can be one of the most efficient third or fourth receivers in the league. Either way, the team that gets him should love him.