Corey Coleman Scouting Report: The Human Touchdown

Touchdowns are an incredibly beautiful and powerful thing. They are the eighth wonder of the world. Touchdowns killed Schrodinger's cat. Chip Kelly left his wife for touchdowns.

They are also incredibly hard to get.

The number one goal of every defensive player and coach is to prevent touchdowns. There are 11 players and god knows how many coordinators and assistant coaches who have dedicated their lives to stopping the touchdown. When the ball is snapped, those 11 players will go to war to stop the touchdown and will do whatever it takes to keep offenses out of the hallowed end zone. So, if a wide receiver is constantly scoring touchdowns, he must be pretty damn good.

For wide receivers, scoring touchdowns is a skill.

Look across the NFL. The great wide receivers are the ones who are consistently coming down with nine or more touchdowns a year. Dez Bryant, Brandon Marshall, Odell Beckham and AJ Green are all receivers who are constantly a threat to bring down the house on any play. To have that skill to score, it takes some kind of dominant trait or blend of such. Bryant, Marshall and Green are all huge targets who aggressively play the ball, making them dominant red zone threats. As for Odell Beckham, who is a freak, he has a rare blend of speed, quickness and incredible ability at the catch point that makes him a target away from a house call on every play. See, any average receiver can pick up catches and yards, and eventually that high volume could coincide with scoring some tuddies, but that is not necessarily a replicable process. When you have players who are scoring in bunches more efficiently, that is when it is time to get excited.

Well, hellooooooooo Corey Coleman; The Human Touchdown.

You heard right, the Baylor wide receiver is a damn super hero and his power is blowing the top off of a defense and making cornerbacks go running home, crying to their mother. 20 touchdowns in 2015. TWENTY. That is two more touchdowns than Laquon Treadwell has in his CAREER. Those touchdowns came on only 74 catches. For you math majors out there, that is a touchdown rate of over 27%. For comparison, Dez Bryant's best season at Oklahoma State, he was scoring touchdowns at a hair under 22%. Both in the Big 12, both ridiculous, yet Coleman's efficiency is near god level. Even more insane, while Coleman still had Seth Russell throwing to him before the starting quarterback went down with injury, Coleman was scoring at a rate of over THIRTY percent. Now that he has a fourth string quarterback who used to be a kick returner throwing the ball, his production, along with everyone else's, has dipped. So, of course touchdowns can be impacted by whoever is throwing the ball, but Coleman has been scoring touchdowns since he became a full time starter in 2014, so I am not worried.

Of course, these touchdowns do not just magically appear out of thin air. If that was the case, the Eagles might actually be good this year. Coleman has to do work for these touchdowns and that includes using his freaky skill set to outrun, out jump and outmaneuver defenders. He is more athletic than most defenders in basically any dimension imaginable. He also has excellent hands and ball skills both in contested situations and when tracking down the field.

He is a "Create a Player".

Unfortunately, Coleman is not perfect, but he could not be, because then the Geneva Convention would make him illegal and Green Peace would start protesting about him. First of all, despite Coleman flashing excellent catching ability, he has a tendency to drop easy passes, often looking for a play too soon instead of bringing in the ball first. Also, in the Baylor offense, Coleman has a very simple role and, thus, will have to learn a lot of the nuances of the NFL game that he will not get from running a simple route tree in college. Of course, Coleman's ability precludes him to be able to do anything he is asked to do at the NFL level, but there are baby steps to be made. However, Coleman is SO athletic and has enough ability at the catch point, that he will be able to separate from NFL defenders sooner than later without having to immediately master route running or coverage awareness.

NFL Comparison: Dynamically, Corey Coleman and Martavis Bryant have a lot in common. Of course, Bryant has a healthy five inches on Coleman, but they offer similar things on a per snap basis. Neither is "polished", but at any given moment, they could catch a 60 yard pass down the field, Moss a guy in the end zone, or turn a short pass into a touchdown. Both are explosive plays waiting to happen, and when a player can do that, who gives a shit about anything else?

Should the Eagles draft Coleman? Hell yes! Yeah, they have spent three Top 75 picks on wide receivers in the last two drafts, but the team is still desperate for some kind of explosive player that they just do not have right now. Of course, the team has a lot of other needs, but if Coleman was in midnight green a few months from now, everyone is invited over for drinks at my place.