Somebody Stop Me Before I Put Jonathan Mingo at WR1 in This Class

Jonathan Mingo has the size and skill set to become the best wide receiver to come out of this year's draft class.

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I don’t feel the same as most seem to about this year’s crop of wide receiving talent entering the NFL Draft. “It’s not very deep,” some would say. I disagree. I think it’s really deep….really deep full of guys that look like WR3s with WR2 potential. I’ve evaluated 20 wide receivers so far, and I’d say that maybe three of ’em project as a complete overall wide receiver in the NFL. There’s a handful of guys that look like they could develop into WR1s for whichever team drafts them, and Ole Miss wideout Jonathan Mingo is one of them.

Mingo initially caught my eye leading into the Senior Bowl. His frame is damn near identical to AJ Brown’s, with Mingo clocking in at 6’1″ 226 pounds. During the practices down in Mobile, I felt like Mingo was the most consistently good wide receiver down there that week. His release off the line of scrimmage was smooth as butter, and I wrote down at one point that “one step is automatically two yards of separation for this guy.” It just seemed so easy for him during the drills to take one step to either side and go. It was impressive, but I wanted to get a more complete evaluation of the guy. So, I turned to the tape.

In the Alabama game, he had seven catches for 59 yards and a touchdown. Against all that NFL talent in the Tide secondary, it seemed like a good place to start. And, I thought it was some really good tape on Mingo. I found that there’s a soft sort of quality to his game. Those smooth releases I saw at Hancock Whitney Stadium translated to game action. He’s a sort of bendy route runner, taking what the defense gives him to fluidly get open. He tends to find soft spots in zone, and he positions himself well down the field with a smooth first step that creates space against defensive backs from the jump. I don’t know how else to explain it, but it seemed like at times, he’d create separation with that first step and never give up ground all the way through his route.

There were several times in that game when he used that one step and spacing to get wide open but the ball wasn’t thrown his way. There was a really nice play during which he timed his break outside just right using the outside receiver as a natural pick. Jordan Battle couldn’t get to him because of the pick, and it made for a nice gain. Brian Branch seemed to have a good game against Mingo. Mingo struggled to really separate from Branch down the field, and Branch won perhaps the most important play of the game, running with Mingo to the end zone and preventing a touchdown reception that could’ve at least tied the game and sent it to overtime.

That’s where I think the biggest concern for Mingo comes into play. Does he have the straight line speed to separate down field by flat out running with a guy? There’s evidence of it on his tape (Texas A&M and Vanderbilt), but it wasn’t consistent, and it didn’t happen against Alabama. He was wide open on several occasions, but that was more from the timeliness of his breaks than anything else. He also had a couple of concerning drops in the Mississippi State game, when he was wide open but seemed to be turning his head to either prepare for a hit or to look up field thinking “touchdown.”

I’d also like to see a little more impact in his blocking…more drive and pop. He was willing to get in there on Will Anderson Jr., and even had some success against him on a rep or two. He popped Henry To’oTo’o on a play, too. He shows flashes of being willing to really get in there and get his hands dirty. Other times, he just kind of drifts around. That showed up in the Mississippi State game as well as Dayton Wade had to hit him in the back out on the edge of the play, as if to say “GO! BLOCK!” Those two things….the separation down the field in 1:1 situations, and the consistent drive in run-blocking…are my only two real concerns when it comes to Mingo. Otherwise, he’s a versatile, complete wide receiver, and it showed in how this Ole Miss offense used him.

He was a true jack of all trades. That might’ve actually impacted his production, as it seemed that Ole Miss knew a defense would respect him and used him as more of a decoy than anything else on occasion. But, they lined him up in the slot a ton. They used him as an inline tight end, for crying out loud. They put him in the back field. They used him as an X receiver in the red zone. They motioned him. They used him on jet sweeps. He ran a ton of stop routes. He ran a ton of in-breaking routes and stuff across the middle. There was truly no role in this Ole Miss offense that he couldn’t do. That versatility was an aspect of his game I honestly didn’t expect to see.

All in all, I see a more nuanced route runner than Brown was coming out of Ole Miss. Mingo can beat you at every level of the defense with his timing, positioning, and savvy. He’s not the most elusive guy, and that’s where I think Brown was definitely YAC-ier. But, I think Mingo is closer to what people think Quentin Johnston is right now than Quentin Johnston actually is. He also happened to have the second best RAS of the wide receivers at the Combine.

Somebody needs to take my phone away from me before I tweet out something like “Jonathan Mingo WR1.” I have a reputation to uphold. I can’t be out here on these internet streets saying stuff like that. But….

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

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