WR, Ole Miss
Height: 5’9″
Weight: 184 lbs
Class: Junior
Elijah Moore might just be the best slot receiver in the 2021 class. He is coming off a career year at Ole Miss, finishing the year as a First Team All-SEC member and First Team All-American. Whilst he is undersized, he offers great hands and tremendous after the catch ability.
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Strengths
Moore is coming of an excellent 2020 campaign that saw him produce against some of college football’s best teams. He finished the year with 86 catches for 1,193 yards and eight touchdowns, going for over 200 yards in three of his eight games. He racked up 11 catches for 143 yards against Alabama and his 149.1 yards per game led the FBS.
Moore operates primarily out of the slot, with great speed and quickness to create separation. He offers real versatility though. Moore has the agility and short area quickness to be effective on screens and sweeps. Ole Miss even used him as a runner out of the backfield on occasion. He wins regularly on the intermediate level with slants and has the deep speed to stretch opposing defenses vertically.
Moore is really effective with the ball in his hands and is a nightmare for opponents in the open field. He is a constant home run threat and is capable of making defenders miss. Moore logged 18 forced missed tackles on his 86 receptions this season, the sixth most in the FBS. He also added another two on his 14 carries.
What distinguishes Moore from most other undersized slot receivers is his physicality at the catch point. His separation ability means that he doesn’t have to rely on this, but he is effective when he needs to be. Moore won 73 per cent of his contested catches this season. For context, this is higher than the likes of Sage Surratt and Tylan Wallace.
Moore also offers some of the best hands in this year’s class. He is comfortable making catches outside his frame and he rarely drops anything that comes his way. He logged just two drops on his 88 catchable targets this season. His 2.3 per cent drop rate ranked 12th amongst receivers with at least 50 targets this season.
Weaknesses
The obvious concern with Moore is his lack of size. Whilst his ability to be competitive at the catch point is a pleasant surprise, his lack of length affects other areas of his game. Moore can get re-routed when faced with more physical corners. He didn’t face much press coverage at all in college and how he would deal with it remains something of an unknown. He flashed potential on the boundary, but teams will see him mainly as a slot receiver in the NFL.
The other concern will be the extent to which Moore’s numbers were the result of schemed production. Whilst he certainly showcases the ability to create separation one-on-one, a lot of his production came on slant routes where he would find holes in zone coverage. There is value to this, but it is important to contextualise his production.
Bottom Line
Moore might not be the biggest receiver in the class, but he ticks almost every other box. Few can match his production, and he did it against some of college football’s best defenses in the SEC. With elite hands and excellent after the catch ability, he projects as a top tier slot receiver in the NFL. Given how he played in college, I wouldn’t rule out some success on the boundary either.
Big Board Rank: #36
Positional Rank: #7
