Lessons in Scouting: The N’Keal Harry Story

The New England Patriots drafted K’Neal Harry in the first round in 2019, and he might be playing elsewhere in 2021. Are there lessons to be learned?

I am slowly approaching a full seven years writing about football on a professional/semi-professional basis. Back in August of 2014 yet another football website debuted, and it would eventually come to be known as “Inside the Pylon.” A group of football fans with absolutely no experience writing professionally got together and started to create content about the game they played, and/or loved.

The bulk of us behind that website, myself included, knew each other from a Red Sox message board, Sons of Sam Horn. That website is still operating to this day, and the members are looking ahead to a strong second half of the 2021 season.

But thanks to that shared love of the Boston Red Sox, many of us were, as you might expect, New England Patriots fans. So from the beginning ITP tried to focus our coverage on New England, thanks to a somewhat built-in audience. As luck would have it, the Patriots would make a Super Bowl run that year, giving us something to cover the entire season.

After Super Bowl XXXIX, however, I remember waking up that Monday morning wondering what in the world we were going to do next.

So we shifted our focus to the draft, without any knowledge of the Draft Industrial Complex and just how big an event the draft had become.

Silly me.

But in that first year we managed to pull together some draft coverage, despite getting into the game at such a late date, and as you might expect my focus was on quarterbacks and wide receivers. You can still find some of those profiles on ITP’s Scouting Hub, if you care to revisit some of the great debates from the spring of 2015. For the record, I had Marcus Mariota QB1. I was also high on this relative unknown from Old Dominion, Taylor Heinicke, as well as another small school quarterback, Chris Bonner. Remember those debates?

You will also notice that among the receivers I managed to scout, one of them was an Arizona State product, Jaelen Strong. Strong received a lot of first-round attention, yet ultimately fell all the way to the third round. If you dive into the profile I put together on him, you’ll see that I was more lukewarm on him.

Strong’s calling card coming out of Arizona State was that he was a “ball-winner.” It was one of the strengths I highlighted on him, as did many others. Yet the more we study the wide receiver position, the more we might properly view players like this as they enter the draft:

Players that struggle to separate. Which, if you think about it, is a pretty big part of the job.

Let’s spin this ahead a few years, to another Arizona State Product. Coming out of ASU a few seasons ago, N’Keal Harry was another wide receiver prospect whose calling card was that of a “ball-winner.” Lance Zierlein of NFL.com pretty much nailed this in his profile of Harry, writing that the receiver was a “[b]ack-shoulder boss who thrives with contested catch opportunities outside the numbers but lacks explosive traits. Harry’s ability to body-up opponents and win with ball skills is undeniable, but his inability to find a threatening top gear or shake loose from tight man coverage must be accounted for within his new employer’s scheme.”

The emphasis added is mine.

Another analyst, Benjamin Solak of The Draft Network, hit the same points in his own evaluation. Calling his route running “uninspiring,” Solak wrote:

Has tremendous physical tools but does not recruit all of them to their capacity. Best trait is vertical burst against off coverage, which allows him to eat up ground in a hurry on vertical stems; also impresses with ability to retain velocity through cut, especially on multi-break routes. Lacks a nuanced understanding of leverage and how to separate with route stems: regularly dances at the break point/release point without much of an objective in mind, and does not acknowledge how to adjust his routes to coverage.

The emphasis added is, again, mine.

The common thread? Harry, despite his impressive physical tools and ability to win in contested-catch situations, could not separate from coverage consistently at the Pac-12 level.

So sure, he can win 50/50 balls on Saturdays. But if you cannot separate at the college level and rely on winning at the catch point on Saturdays, what is going to happen to you on Sundays?

When 50/50 balls become 40/60 balls, or something even worse in your favor?

That is likely not a recipe for success.

If you boil down the essence of wide receiver play to: “1. Get open. 2. Catch ball. 3. Profit,” then a player who struggles to do the first thing at the college level will not find things easier at the next level, against the Jalen Ramseys of the world.

Still, despite the warnings from the Zierleins and the Solaks of the world, the Patriots selected Harry in the first round, passing on other wide receiver prospects such as Deebo Samuel, A.J. Brown, Mecole Hardman, D.K. Metcalf, and Terry McLaurin. Over two seasons in New England, Harry has played in 21 games with 14 starts, and caught 45 passes for 414 yards and four touchdowns.

The lack of production has resulted in a limited role for Harry in New England, and with the team adding Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne in free agency — as well as a pair of tight ends in Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry which likely spells more 12 personnel and less snaps for wide receivers — Harry is now looking to be traded.

As you might expect, Harry’s struggles to separate that were evident in college continued into the NFL. He did not receive enough targets to qualify for the “Average Separation” statistic as measured by the NFL’s Next Gen Stats as a rookie, but last season Harry averaged 2.9 yards of separation when targeted, placing him on par with tight ends Evan Engram and Logan Thomas, and behind most NFL receivers. Furthermore, as a rookie Harry struggled to find his way into Tom Brady’s “Circle of Trust,” most evident on this play during a Sunday night loss to the Houston Texans:

After the game Brady was less than pleased with his receivers, and Harry was essentially iced out of the game plan for the next few weeks.

Then last season some — myself included — believed that with Cam Newton coming to town he would find a more willing passing partner. To his credit, Newton spoke highly of the young receiver and did try to work him into the passing game, but Harry’s production struggled in 2020, along with the rest of the Patriots’ passing game.

And now the receiver might be playing elsewhere in 2021.

Of course, this has also shed a spotlight on New England’s struggles developing wide receivers. However, I would argue that that statement is mostly correct. The Patriots have struggled to draft and develop outside, boundary receivers. Slot receiver, however, is a position the Patriots have managed to get right over the years, with players like Troy Brown, Wes Welker, Julian Edelman and perhaps most recently with Jakobi Meyers, who might be best suited for a slot role in New England’s offense.

But when it comes to the boundary receivers, they have struggled, and Harry is the latest example.

We know that slot receivers do have life a bit easier than their compatriots on the outside. Slot receivers get the benefit of the “two-way go” off the line of scrimmage, and often have an easier time of beating press coverage at the snap as a result. That also gives them the chance to get that much-needed separation on their routes. Boundary receivers, however, see more press coverage, tougher jams at the line and are often forced into a release that requires them to track back immediately to get into their route.

All of which makes life on the outside tougher, and the ability to separate a much-needed skill.

Ultimately, perhaps Harry was best suited for a role as a “big slot” receiver in New England, but with the organization seeming to move in a different direction, it is likely that ship has sailed. Remember what Zierlein wrote, about how Harry’s NFL organization would need to do things schematically to put him on the best footing possible as a professional. Maybe his next team will take note.

The lesson? Getting open is part of the job. If a receiver struggles to do that on Saturdays, life is not going to get any easier on Sundays. Keep that in mind in the next draft cycle… and beyond.