...What I saw in the Seahawks’ rookie minicamp was a receiver far smoother through his route cuts than one would imagine. Metcalf is never going to be an elite short-area guy who breaks cornerbacks down with option routes from the slot. But at 6-3 and 228 pounds, that’s not what you want from a prototypical “X” receiver. From that guy, you want someone who can create separation at the line of scrimmage, body defenders through the first parts of his routes, and create plays with a silly catch radius and the ability to create yards after the catch.
The agility drills were decent, but decent is good enough with all his other attributes.
...Metcalf proved that he could make catches beyond the perimeter of the average receiver with a sideline dive on a quick out, and a jump ball in which he made his defender look like he was in a different zip code. As far as the cuts to separate, he’s perfectly fine as long as he sinks into his routes and uses momentum to accelerate. The offseason work shows up there. And on another play, he absolutely raked cornerback Simeon Thomas out of his area with an aggressive move to come back to the ball. The combination of strength and cutting speed brought Dez Bryant to mind. And his outside move to fake to an inside quick slant is an absolute killer — on plays like that, it’s easy to see how, per Sports Info Solutions, he had a 100% Positive Play Rate against zone coverage in 2018.
Things got even showier on Saturday, when Metcalf caught five would-be touchdown passes on deep routes, boxing out and racing past cornerbacks who didn’t seem to know what to do with him. He also ran skinny slants and quick outs for receiver screens in which he wasn’t targeted, but this was more evidence that this is a player who can do more than people think. And on Sunday, he showed the ability to move from a quick out route to a zone beater underneath, adjusting to a scrambling quarterback.
If this guy is seriously limited as a route runner, I certainly didn’t see it, and I was looking for it.