Tee Higgins Just Another Mike Williams Clone?

If you’re an NFL team and you need a wide receiver, you’re in luck. The 2020 NFL Draft is a big wide receiver draft. It won’t be hard to find one come April. There will be good weapons available in the 5th round. That’s how deep this class is. One wide out seems to be getting lost in the shuffle. That man is Tee Higgins. After a productive career at Clemson, Higgins really seems to be flying under the radar. Higgins might be flying under the radar but should he?

Teams have gotten in trouble drafting big wide receivers that can’t separate. Go ask the Panthers how Kelvin Benjamin and Devin Funchess worked out for them. A lot of the times, drafting one of those big wide outs never works. Tee Higgins falls into that category. Higgins is every bit of 6-foot-4. Being that size is great but when you lack speed and route running, you start to enter that dangerous category.

I call it the Laquon Treadwell mistake. I’ll never make the mistake again. Treadwell isn’t all tall as those guys but he never separated well and lacked speed. When Treadwell didn’t run at the combine, I ignored it but I shouldn’t have. I just thought he was going to be Alshon Jeffery. Turns out that’s the least likely scenario. More of them turn into guys like Funchess.

The good news is that Clemson actually has a really good track record. Wide receivers that really don’t fail. I don’t see it but what if he’s closer to DeAndre Hopkins? I don’t remember Hopkins being a slam dunk coming out of the draft either. Watching Higgins in college, it’s impossible to not compare him to Mike Williams. A taller receiver that lacked speed but has worked at the NFL level. Higgins refused to run at the combine. Mike Williams didn’t run either. Higgins plays the ball really well in the air and wins the contested catch. Mike Williams was similar in college and has panned out in the NFL.

Tee Higgins even has more college production than Mike Williams did. Higgins has back to back 59 reception seasons with 15 touchdowns. Keep in mind he also sat out a number of second halves with Clemson’s weak schedule. Williams never produced like that mainly because of a neck injury. Williams was taken with the 7th pick in the draft. He hasn’t been a dominant receiver but he’s been more than solid.

Higgins is a good football player. The problem is we have seen more players with his skillset fail than succeed. Even if he’s Mike Williams 2.0, where do you take that in this draft? It’s such a loaded receiver draft that you can avoid the risk. So what are you actually getting with Tee Higgins? Even if he hits, is that really worth a first round pick? It’s one of the tougher evaluations heading into the 2020 NFL Draft.

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