• Position: Wide Receiver
• College: Georgia
• Class: Senior
• Number: 84
• Drafted at: Round 2 Pick 2 (34th overall)
• Age when drafted: 22.46

Measurables:

RAS Score:

Production:

Games Watched:

• Oregon- 09.03.2022
• TCU – 01.10.2022
• Alabama – 12.02.2023

Notes:

Georgia were a run heavy team (52% compared to NFL average 40%) so targets were harder to come by to begin with but when you add in the Brock-Bowers-effect, the share gets even lighter. Ladd’s 2023 season was thrown out of whack when he missed 5 games with back and ankle injuries (which have since been signed off as healed). Therefore if we go back to his last full year he was targeted 15.4% of the time by Stetson Bennett in his Junior year.

Positives:

Does really well on the tunnel screens including one where he cut tight behind his climbing lineman’s hips and shows some short area quickness to eat up the space (his elite three cone time backs up the film here) before using his excellent vision to cut twice into open space against the grain to maximize the yardage available. Has the release footwork to open up against press and uses a swim move effectively to keep going free but he won’t accelerate past from this position despite his explosive testing. He can however utilize the panic this creates to snap off routes back to the ball but I’d expect pro corners would get used to this and play in trail. Leant into a seam route nicely and showed strong hands to get up and grab the sideline ball towards the goal line but didn’t get his feet down as his light frame got pushed 3 yards out of bounds in the air. Strong run blocker despite his size, shows solid lower body strength to anchor and pivot to keep his man inside, he really has great technique here. Shows off a nice hip drop at the top of his route to get from his vertical stem to a rollout comeback route with fluidity and great timing. His play speed is nothing to shout about but he can climb levels in the intermediate areas in a hurry, when he gets into the second phase of his sprint he can really start to move. Keeps fighting to give his QB a target on a scramble drill from the far side of the field, nice hustle to even get to the under thrown ball. His plant on his speed cut is confident and carries pace throughout it in an efficient manner as he doesnt get too deep into his knee bend, this means he doesn’t have to steer with his backfoot and he can instead lift it all the way through; this will serve him well in the slot. Took a reverse to the house on a lead blocker concept, I like that he set up his blocks and didn’t just blaze into an open gap, he showed both patience and speed at once.

Explosive gain when running the blaze out on the PA boot concept, good setup but his speed and shifty moves in space won the down where he shook the corner to the floor on a nasty cut before surging upfield and trying the same move again only falling short of a score by a yard on a shoestring tackle. Ran a beautiful Dig route on the far side where he released rapidly opening up his defenders before getting down, in, up and out of a lateral cut and then exploding again across the middle to hit a huge window at the time of his QBs release but Stetson had pulled the trigger on another option. His blocking technique means he can lead block on motions despite being light, he is not afraid to take it to bigger defenders. You really see his projection to the pros when he sits vs zone from his slot alignment; he gets from facing back to full speed in a hurry and steers his way through space and uses his full open stride speed to threaten the safeties early, he can really be a chain mover and a target hog from these situations.

Negatives:

Lack of explosion in his release, has to really lift his knees to generate power in his stem and clearly doesn’t have natural burst. Has the quickness to threaten second level zones but isn’t able to push safeties back to open up underneath. I thought his speed getting in and out of his breaks would be better, he takes minimal steps but his feet aren’t naturally able to carry the pace of his stem through tighter cuts and he seems to round off routes more often than an elite route runner should. Poor use of space on the bubble screen where he runs to the sideline where he had a blocker inside, overthought this. He has to steer around apex defenders who have stacked his release and this costs time in the route, with more mass he could learn to be physical enough to replace the inside shoulder of his man. I’d like him to flatten his out routes underneath outside quarter zones a bit more as he drifts too deep leaving a tough angle for his QB to hit. Whilst he is willing to block and has good technique his lack of functional play strength means corners can get off of him at the last second by benching him off their chest and giving themselves a two way go, needs to adjust his grip to get wide and then step into them as he feels the runner getting nearer. He gets knocked off balance at the top of his routes pretty easily and he can’t play through his man in the redzone with his lack of physicality.

Overall Grade: 

WR8 / Tier 4 / Round 2

Summary:

Ladd was looking likely to lift the Georgia Bulldogs’ receiving corps to the next level during the run-in of the 2023 season with some impressive displays against Florida, Missouri and Ole Miss before a pair of injuries derailed his season. He had already shown he can be a smart multilevel threat that can keep defenses worried about their spacing as he can use his quickness to get in between the second and third levels. I think Ladd can become a solid possession type receiver that can be a good asset that is consistently available in the intermediate areas. However his ceiling can be seen as limited without the explosive traits of the elite guys above him in this class. His testing didn’t shine through on tape often enough and whilst his 4.39 40 yard time will have people thinking he can take the top off, he rarely threatened that except with the ball already in his hands where he has flashed home run hitting ability without the elusiveness that would make him a genuine YAC threat. Seems to be more comfortable and better suited to the slot where he can use his route running to manipulate leverages in zone or match without having to physically dominate like he would on the outside. His junior year tape showed much more juice, the Oregon game particularly was very impressive, so it seems like the injuries limited him even when available in his senior year, if he has been fully signed off then this could be a guy to bet on.

System fit:

Ladd is going to be a nice fit for a run heavy Greg Roman scheme as he can do the dirty work whilst being ready to utilize his opportunities with quick breaks back to the ball especially when afforded two way go’s in the slot. I don’t expect to see many 1000 yard seasons from anyone in this system and that’s why I am a fan of taking Ladd from a profile fit perspective as he gives Justin options if teams go into zone to get more bodies into the box to stop the run. Of course elite speed kills but very good speed combined with other tools means he can stay on the field for all three downs and contribute in multiple ways.

System Player Comp:

Whilst I do not like to do player comps overall I do like to see which of the former players within the coordinators recent history the prospects align with. McConkey is remarkably similar to Rashod Bateman in terms of size and testing but their film has differences that I believe are Greg Roman and Joe Hortiz trying to correct the mistake with Bateman who has so far not lived up to expectations as a Round 1 receiver. Bateman was a smooth route runner coming out of Minnesota but his lack of true speed in both short and long areas meant he hasn’t been able to turn that into consistent seperation. Ladd is a bit smaller in stature particularly in wingspan but this is clearly something the organization are willing to live with for the more explosive traits.

Pick Assessment:

The Bolts traded up from 37 to 34 to get their man as they clearly thought he’d be off the ball by the time they picked. However they only had to switch pick 110 (the additional 4th rounder they got for Keenan Allen) for pick 137 to get up this far. The value they got in the pick swap wasn’t too bad (-6.5 points on the Jimmy Johnson chart) but looking at the drop off in WR after this pick makes this a very sound decision to trade up. I had Ladd as my WR8 and they took him as the WR8 despite his system fit being much better suited than players taken before him. Adonai Mitchell and Roman Wilson were the only similarly graded WRs left on my board however Mitchell wasn’t going to be a Harbaugh guy with his lack of effort away from the play so that left a choice between Roman and Ladd. If Jim didn’t want his own man in the door then I am definitely going to defer to his expertise and believe this was for a reason, therefore you could say this was the only logical choice left on the table and therefore justifies the trade up at a position of need.