Josh Kelly, WR, Texas Tech
Size:
Height: 6005
Weight: 186
Arm: 30 ⅞”
Hand: 10 ½”
Accomplishments:
All-Mountain West Honorable Mention (2021)
“Josh Kelly is a nuanced and savvy route-runner with strong separation skills to defeat multiple coverages and be a consistent target for his quarterback.”
Strengths:
Short-area suddenness and quickness
Good ball skills with late hands at the catch point
Strength and contact balance after the catch
Good brakes to stop with suddenness on curls, hitches, and comeback routes
Concerns:
Dynamic and explosiveness
Long speed to win vertically on the outside
Facing long-armed, athletic corners in press alignment
Older prospect
Film Analysis:
Josh Kelly is a super senior prospect who spent four years at Fresno State before transferring to Washington State. Kelly offers a nuanced and savvy approach to route running. His tempo and pacing are veteran-like and create issues for defensive backs. He is effective in winning against man and zone defenses. Kelly brings a sure-handed pass-catching option with great ball skills and tracking.
Josh Kelly is a skilled receiver with plenty of experience. He’s appeared in 38 games with 148 catches for 2,228 yards and 12 touchdowns. This experience is noticeable in his approach to defeating his coverage defenders.
Kelly is a nuanced and savvy route-runner who sets DBs up well to get open on a routine basis. He is a great route salesman, making every route look the same. He presses upfield well to force DBs into committing to running vertically, freeing up space underneath. Kelly gets in and out of his route breaks with smoothness, suddenness, and fluidity to create good separation. He is highly effective running routes working back to the QB, like, curls, hitches, and comebacks.
Kelly has a strong spatial awareness on shorter route concepts. He can feel defenders closing in before evading and breaking tackles for yards after the catch. He plays with good strength and contact balance after the catch to make positive plays upfield. Kelly displays strong, reliable hands to make plays on the ball. He plays with late hands when the ball arrives and doesn’t tip off his defender. Kelly is a consistent catch-point playmaker. He thrives at attacking the ball with full extension and strength.
In the run game, Kelly is a willing and functional blocker on the perimeter. He latches onto defenders and works to seal them out of the action.
Kelly is not an explosive receiver. He does not possess the dynamic athleticism to explode past DBs at the line of scrimmage. Unless Kelly wins quickly and stacks his defenders, foot races vertically will be a mixed bag of results. Athletically, he is missing the consistent long speed to outrun athletic defensive backs.
Additional concerns will be how he handles long-arm press defenders in the NFL. Without explosive speed, defensive coordinators will think to crowd him at the line of scrimmage and reduce the amount of free releases he faces. As a super senior, Kelly is an older prospect. This can drop his draft stock because teams have age thresholds. Some will question if he is a capped prospect, regarding Kelly’s ceiling.
Kelly is a skilled wide receiver with experience and reps that sets a safer floor than some of his counterparts. Kelly is a nuanced route-runner and mover with inside and outside flexibility. He projects as a solid contributor to an NFL passing attack with starting potential.
Prospect Projection: Day 2 — Adequate Starter
Written By: Damian Parson
Exposures: Oregon State (2023), Colorado (2023), Washington (2023), UCLA (2023), Stanford (2023)
