Where will Jelani Woods land in the 2022 NFL Draft? Sky Sports' Cameron Hogwood explores the Virginia tight end and why he is demanding so much attention
Thursday 14 April 2022 07:31, UK
Everybody has eyes for Jelani Woods, even if unintentionally. He is the sky-scraping lighthouse you double-take on a football field, and one of the toughest yet tantalising evaluations facing teams ahead of the 2022 NFL Draft.
He is the viral clip protagonist you might see swatting and dwarfing in-tow defenders at youth level while opposition parents debate his birth certificate, and the factory-built gene-hogger prone to the 'mismatch nightmare' proverb.
The Virginia tight end is a raw, unfinished commodity, not only still considered new to the tight end position but new to the type of tight end he wishes to be. Stir in athletic measurements that, collectively, stake a claim as the best in the modern era and it amounts to a unique coaching project. One that is hard to pass on, one that has seen him projected as high as the second round.
On the surface he is a makes-football-fun phenomenon, and a tough evaluation that maybe should be anything but tough given the traits you would pump into your create-a-player on Madden.
The NFL has hardly been blessed with its 6'7" 260lb tight ends capable of producing a 4.61 40-yard dash in unison with a 4.33 20-yard shuttle and a 6.95 three-cone drill and a 37.5 inch vertical jump, the latter three of which all bettered Atlanta Falcons marvel Kyle Pitts. So comparisons are short in supply, which maybe aids him in partially alleviating fears over a tricky-to-forecast transition.
Martellus Bennett and Demetrius Harris are loose resemblances, while Mike Gesicki's measurements, Jimmy Graham's red zone threat and Mo Alie-Cox's verticality and blocking expertise are more recent, yet still tenuous, case studies with which to trade notes when it comes to Woods.
Fascination with him is two-pronged. First the Super Soldier serum-like frame and athleticism, second the fact Woods was a top-25 quarterback prospect in the nation at high school before switching to tight end upon his arrival at Oklahoma State.
Even then, he made just 31 catches for 361 yards and four touchdowns in 22 games over the next three seasons as Mike Gundy exploited his size primarily as a blocker. Woods eventually transferred to Virginia ahead of last season in view of establishing himself as a route-running tight end, eclipsing his career production in one year with 44 receptions for 598 yards and eight touchdowns at 13.6 yards per catch in 11 games. The NFL was on alert.
Modern tight end evaluation seeks to distinguish between the 'big-bodied receiver' mould that can hug the seam or play the Y-iso designs or dominate with quick outs and crossers, and then the line-of-scrimmage drifters that can clatter rushers from fullback in Wham concepts, in-line block and plough lanes out in space. If you can do both, marvelous. But nowadays it is not uncommon to find an oversized receiver listed as a tight end and handed relaxed blocking duties.
Woods has the tape to evidence most of it, though the limited sample size of receiving production poses the question as to what extent. The challenge for teams is how they interpret just a single season of running routes, how they comprehend what exactly he is and how they foresee what he could become, what he should become.
Everything about him says it should work, everything about him teases an inevitability as he towers over defensive backs and linebackers to snatch, grab and shrug off. He chose 0 as his jersey number for that very reason.
"Zero came from me just being confident and saying nobody can stop me pretty much, safety, linebackers, corners, nobody can stop me so I felt like I wanted to put that on my back," he told NFL Network.
Beneath the intrigue and obsession is perhaps a perplexion and fear over the prospect of how you could ever squander a physical makeup so rare to the position. There is a similar curiosity with 6' 8" 390lb offensive tackle Daniel Faalele, and whether his frame comes with the athleticism to thrive out in space as a run asset at the next level.
The NFL has seen its share of A-grade students when it comes to the pre-Draft aesthetics come and go without leaving a mark. Woods can be different, so long as his development continues, so long as the right coach uses him the right way.
Last season's win over Illinois was something of a showcase game as he made five catches for 122 yards and a touchdown. Coming in just his second outing of the season, it was a sign of what was to come.
Head coach Bronco Mendenhall and offensive coordinator Robert Anae would deploy him in the slot, isolated on the outside, tucked in with tight splits. On his 32-yard touchdown, Woods crouched as a simulated blocker before using the linebacker's two-step bite on the jet-sweep motion as a separation-creator, taking off vertically up the seam and swivelling his hips to haul in the catch before brushing off the safety for the score. Grown man football, is what some might call it.
Virginia's ploys to get him open throughout the season would include a split backfield to lure defenders into the box as a means of enhancing the spacing on offense, rolling with an empty backfield to guarantee him one-on-one matchups, lining him up at the tip of three-man bunch formations from which they could use him as a bulldozer in a screen play or create confusion with a flood concept to earn him a yard or two head start.
Another play against Illinois evidenced his snappy head feint and decent enough footwork to get open with an in-breaking route before snatching in a bullet from quarterback Brennan Armstrong.
In a rare glimpse of him as a playmaker in 2020, he put a TCU cornerback on skates with a receiver-calibre juke to tease his yards-after-catch power, and demonstrated his value as a security blanket against Wake Forest last year when he matched Armstrong's frantic scrambling by extending his route and combining a standout catch radius with neat footwork to salvage a high ball at the sideline.
Such became of a more complete package that one play in the 59-39 loss to North Carolina saw Virginia break him off the right tackle and into the weak side flat to drag up the corner and pave the way for the deep-over route, before Woods, refusing to settle, made up the ground to assist as a blocker downfield.
His sharp release defies his size and build rather emphatically, and what he lacks in acceleration to garner immediate separation he can often compensate for through the mid-route physicality he uses to wrestle off defenders in press coverage.
Body-catching tendencies were evident and understandable given his experience, but also matched by plentiful examples of snappy snatch-and-control hand catches in traffic and on the move, with Armstrong often taking advantage of the freedom to throw high to him. And while his route-running and change of direction lacked the fluidity or variety of others, again understandable, his agility and timing on hitch routes was a primary component, along with the difficulty cover defenders had in reaching around his frame in such scenarios.
As for the 4.61 straight line speed, it combined with his sheer tackle-shaking ferocity in hinting at a yards-after-catch threat to be honed further, as well as showing up in bootleg situations. What meanwhile now feels a fundamental to his game is the upper-body strength and leg motor to rattle defensive lineman and linebackers as a run blocker, something Virginia would also call upon in the open field.
The hand placement to his blocking could be refined and his size can make it difficult to disguise breaks, but he is a rising giant still learning about himself and what he can do.
What will help him succeed is the hustle to sniff out blocking assignments or run secondary routes event when he isn't the focus of a play. It might also be argued a year in Virginia only scratched the surface of his contested catch prowess and ready-made red zone stature.
The Green Bay Packers are among the smartest in the league at finding a way to get receivers open with explosive plays, and could target him with the intention of spending a year learning behind Marcedes Lewis. Elsewhere the Cincinnati Bengals might view him as an ideal replacement for CJ Uzomah, who signed with the New York Jets in free agency.
Coaches should want to work with a player they have the ability to craft and chisel. He may be a tough evaluation, but he is one of the most compelling, not to mention most fun.
