Kelvin Harmon is one of the most complete wide receivers that will be available in the upcoming 2019 NFL Draft.
Height: 6-foot-3
Weight: 214 pounds
College: NC State
At 6-foot-3, Kelvin Harmon is everything you want out of a big wideout. He shields out smaller defensive backs on jump balls and in tightly contested situations. He catches just about everything in traffic with several bodies converging on him. He’s a willing and very effective run blocker. He owns elite traits that you look for in any wide receiver prospect.
Pros
Harmon is a natural route-runner who gets open with ease at any level of the field. He consistently sets up defenders and it led to a bevy of double moves springing him open deep in college. And when he doesn’t need the double move, he can blow past corners if they are caught flat-footed.
He’s at his best when adjusting to passes. His vertical jumping ability allows him to get over the top of defensive backs and pluck balls over the top of their helmets.
He’s particularly effective on back-shoulder opportunities and basket catches and always seems to come down with the ball no matter how much contact is being initiated.
Another impressive trait of his is an innate awareness of the sideline.
He knows how to control and contort his body when near the boundary and a good amount of his sideline catches in college came with two feet down, which is the standard in the NFL.
Cons
The biggest knocks on Harmon are strictly when it comes to playing with the ball in his hands. He lacks elite speed and agility. He is not an after-the-catch specialist and he doesn’t offer too many dynamic plays when there is a tackler near him as soon as he corrals passes. That might limit his ceiling as a bonafide stud at the next level, but if a creative play caller can scheme up situations for him to see the field in front of him and get the closest defenders blocked, then Harmon could get chunk gains that way because he isn’t slow whatsoever and does have some explosiveness.
The only other issue with his game – which will likely be addressed when he’s in NFL training camp – is his tendency to body-catch a lot of passes. You’d like to see him attack the ball with his strong hands. His comfortability with letting the ball get deep into his body could lead to drops in the NFL, mainly because corners are much faster and quicker to react to passes; which means he will likely be getting hit as he catches balls, so the added milliseconds of body-catching instead of hand-catching may be a potential problem. But he has displayed great hands; he just needs to use them more in certain situations.
Final Thoughts
Those cons are truly nitpicky. Harmon has the makeup of a true No. 1 wide receiver in the NFL. His ability to track balls down the field and bring them in acrobatic fashion mirrors Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs, while his frame and strength are similar to former Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant.
Though he doesn’t have the route-running speed of Diggs or yard-after-catch ability of Bryant, he takes some of the best traits of both of them. Couple that with his impressive production (150 receptions for 2,203 yards over his final two seasons) in a tough conference and you have a worthwhile late-first-round pick at receiver.
