Matthew Golden 2025 NFL Draft Profile

Matthew Golden 2025 NFL Draft Profile

Let’s just get this out of the way right now. You’re a crackhead if you think Matthew Golden is WR1 in this draft class and the only thing it does is expose yourself for being a sheep without the ability of being an independent thinker. I’m not wasting another second before we jump into this. Here is your 2025 NFL Draft profile on the University of Texas wide receiver.

NFL Draft Stock Report: Week 8, Week 12, Conference Championships, College Football Playoff First Round, Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, Cotton Bowl

Golden, 21, was a four star prospect in the state of Texas. He spent two years at Houston prior to finishing up his final season with the Longhorns. Golden is very much a smaller speed receiver who checks in at 5-foot-11, 191.

In 2024, Golden had a bit of a breakout season prior to putting up pedestrian numbers with Houston. Obviously, the QB play at Texas was significantly better than at his prior landing spot. Ditto for the coaching element. 2022 includes 38 receptions for 584 yards and seven scores. Not bad for a freshman. The next year was relatively the same notching 38 receptions for 404 yards and six touchdowns. This past year, Golden reeled in 58 catches for 987 yards and nine touchdowns.

Look, the 17 yards per catch number is a really explosive number. If you’re looking for positives, during the second half of the year, there’s no question that he was the number one target. I’d just argue that’s not a super high bar when Isaiah Bond sucks and Ryan Wingo was just a freshman. Gunnar Helm also had more receptions than Golden so it’s not like he was lapping everyone either. In reality, I think it was a few hot games during the College Football playoff that made people lose their minds.

The stats bare that out. Golden averaged 48 yards per game through the first 12 games of his 2024 season. Didn’t have a single 100-yard game during that stretch. I’d also remind people that nobody ever gameplanned to take this guy out of the game, defensive coordinator wise either.

Then the politics started really entering the equation. Golden goes to the Combine, runs the 40, then ditches the rest of the workout. Because nobody ever learns their Darrius Heyward-Bey lesson, a blazing 4.29 time on the 40 now makes him WR1. Something I’ll never understand because the on-field portion of the workout is truly what matters at the Combine, but whatever.

Also, I don’t really ever see that 4.29 speed show up when watching the games. What I mean by that is the fact that he’s not winning these monster vertical deep balls. Sure, there are some deep balls but he’s more so doing this underneath routes and then can churn out some more yardage with the ball in his hands. I was genuinely surprised he ran that fast. Not that I thought he was slow, but I didn’t see that time coming based on watching the games. Play speed doesn’t match that.

Needs free access to really be at his best. 26% of his routes were vertical routes. Most of his work came in the underneath game. I actually think the best thing he does is scoring those red zone routes creating space to win his matchup. Slants, corners, out routes, yup, he can do that. I think he works best as a presnap motion guy to create matchups. Not overly long either. Lacks length for someone who is being ranked as an elite ball snagger. He’s next-level bad as a blocker and on screens, which he should be good at, he lowkey stinks there too.

Far from an elite route runner. Too upright too often and strength is an area of concern for him. I think he’s best as a slot receiver in trips sets. Can play outside but he’s better as a small speedy slot. A zero factor in the blocking game doesn’t work back to the ball finishing at the catch point in the power department. A 6.5% drop rate in 2024 even in a breakout season, isn’t ideal, and he forced 8 missed tackles the last two years. 13 total drops over the last three years isn’t egregious, but it doesn’t scream first round pick either. Not a crazy YAC monster either.

I have a late to middle round grade on Matthew Golden. Somewhere in the 4-6th round sounds right to me. Based on the draft politics, it seems obvious he will be off the board by the time I’d start to consider taking him. I don’t know who to even compare him to because the rest of the media is so out of control here that you may as well let them get their heart broken while the smart teams take offensive and defensive linemen instead, while pulling the trigger on a similar wide receiver 90 picks later. You better hope he’s Curtis Samuel on HGH or this will prove to be a blown pick by some stupid organization. Even then, it’s still a blown pick.

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