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A Glimpse into the Upside of Dorial Green-Beckham

Adrian Fedkiw|

Minimal risk and very high reward.

And Howie Roseman didn’t even need to use a draft pick to obtain the mercurial and talented Dorial Green-Beckham, who was selected in the second round of the 2015 NFL Draft. All it took was Dennis Kelly.

You read that correctly, DENNIS KELLY!

Green-Beckham caught 32 passes for 549 yards and four touchdowns during his rookie season a year ago, with his 17.2 yards-per-reception clip ranking eighth in the NFL. Thirty of his 32 receptions went for a first down.

It’s a move more for the future than it is now. With Lane Johnson’s seemingly looming suspension, the Eagles will most likely struggle to keep Sam Bradford protected, which means Green-Beckham may not be much of a factor early on. It takes time to run the intermediate and vertical stuff that Green-Beckham excels in. I expect the Eagles to use a quick three-step passing game over the duration of Johnson’s absence. Green-Beckham also needs to learn the playbook.

So don’t freak out if you don’t see much production early.

Green-Beckham came on late in 2015, tallying a pair of 100-yard receiving games over his final five contests. Those are the games I watched and will provide clips of below. He posted six catches for 119 yards and a touchdown during a 42-39 Week 13 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars and nine receptions for 113 yards in a 33-16 loss to the New England Patriots in Week 15.

Let’s check those videos out.

Green-Beckham runs a deep-in route, sees his quarterback Marcus Mariota in trouble and continues to cross the field before finding an open spot in the zone.

This is a play-action bootleg to the right with Green-Beckham running over the middle. He does a nice job of getting down to haul in low throw, impressive for a 6-foot-5, near 240-pounder.

Green-Beckham gets good separation on his plant and burst at the top of his route, running a deep-in on this occasion for the easy completion.

We see a post pattern here with Green-Beckham not afraid of making catches in traffic and taking a shot from the oncoming safety.

And sometimes those shots from safeties don’t bring him down, instead they bounce right off of him.

Green-Beckham is a long strider that covers a lot of ground. The Titans loved using the play-action bootleg with him running deep crosses last season, which might be utilized with the Eagles often due to Bradford’s ability to throw on the move.

Green-Beckham has really good body control, easily adjusting to the ball on a post corner despite solid coverage by the cornerback Logan Ryan.

We see the back-shoulder throw here, with Green-Beckham coming down with the reception against Ryan, who again played him well.

Here’s the only bad clip I have. Green-Beckham did have a drop rate of six percent, which isn’t great, but still a lot better than Nelson Agholor (9.1 percent) and Josh Huff (7.5 percent).

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