Measurables
UNIVERSITY- South California AGE- 20 CLASS- JR
HEIGHT- 6’5” WEIGHT- 210 ARM LENGTH-
40 Time- 3 CONE- VERTICAL- BROAD JUMP- BENCH PRESS-
Overview
Drake London played his high school ball at Moorpark High School in California. There he was a two sport star at both not only football but also basketball, in which he averaged 29 points and 11 rebounds as a senior. USC recruited him for both football and basketball. In 2019 as a true freshman London appeared in all 13 games, starting 9 of those. He finished the season 567 yards and 5 TDs on 39 receptions. He appeared in 3 basketball games but wasn’t much of a factor. In the shortened covid year of 2020 London started all 6 games and finished with 33 catches for 502 yards and 3 TDs. His efforts in 2020 earned him All-Pac 12 second team by most publications and coaches. In 2021 Drake London exploded until his season was cut short due to injury after making 8 starts. He tallied 1084 yards, 7 TDs on 88 catches. Despite missing a decent chunk of the season he earned Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year, First team All-Pac 12, and Third team All-American honors for his efforts.
Strengths
Drake London has been a basketball star as well as a football star his whole life and he plays like it. London is a tall, long armed, big body WR and he uses every bit of his stature to his benefit. You don’t really see these guys much in the NFL these days like you used to but Drake is your prototypical chain mover as an X WR. London is quick for his size out of his breaks to create enough separation at the top of his routes. Drake is advanced at changing gears in his routes to throw off the rhythm of a corner and create separation down the field. He flashes a great stutter and go move off the line. London isn’t a burner and won’t run away from anybody but he has enough speed to test you deep. What Drake absolutely excels at for his age is understanding the open pockets in the defense’s zone as well as running his routes to the first down chains. I felt he was capable of finding a way to get the ball regardless of what coverage they faced. He does a nice job of working back to the ball and rolling out for a throwing window on scramble drills. He is a QBs best friend and that was evident at USC, because that QB was throwing it to him damn near every pass play. As a WR, London does an excellent job of bodying off DBs and making catches away from his body in all areas of the field. Down the field he can simply just go over the top of guys to make a catch. London does a good job of tracking the ball down the field. On underneath routes he doesn’t need much separation because he’s able to block out defenders with his big frame. He then attacks the ball, a lot of guys will give up on an underthrown ball or a throw thrown too late and it usually ends up intercepted. Not London though, he goes and gets it. He shows excellent body control around the sidelines as well and not only gets 1 foot in but usually 2 on those toe-drag type of catches. After the catch, you see some shiftiness to make some guys miss. His real threat after the catch though is how hard he is to bring down physically in short yardage situations; it took multiple guys and a ton of effort at times to get him down.
Weaknesses/Room for Improvement
You more or less know what you’re getting from Drake London I believe. What he does, he does very well. He isn’t an extremely explosive athlete that will be able to score from anywhere on the field. The explosion also limits him in his route running as he won’t put you in peril on quick slants or routes breaking out toward the sideline. Most corners will be able to stay within distance to at least attempt to make a play on the ball at the catch point. I felt London has good hands but not spectacular glue hands or anything of the sort. You see him body catch at times as well as double catch some balls that come his way. London has some concentration drops in his game too but he has such a heavy workload I give him a slight benefit of the doubt. It’ll be something I keep an eye on going forward though. He doesn’t have the gumby/Mr. Fantastic agility to make spectacular catches away from his body. I’m interested to know why he only played on the left side of the field and that’s concerning. He will certainly have to play both sides of the field in today’s NFL. Aside from a play here and there out of the slot, in which he would either get a bubble screen or an end-around, there wasn’t any position flex at all with him. He projects primarily and potentially singularly as an X WR. His footwork could use a lot of work, in effort to expand his very limited route tree. He’s more of a long legged route runner at this point in time. If you wanna compare him to a baseball hitter, day 1 he’s certainly hitting singles, with double ability. He will likely never be a home run guy.
Scheme Fit
X-WR in a vertical attacking offense.
Round Grade
First Round