With the 117th overall pick (4th-round), the Los Angeles Rams selected Texas A&M WR Josh Reynolds. Reynolds is a 22-year old, who measures in at 6’3” and 195 lbs. Reynolds offers great size, though his lack of weight is concerning. His combine numbers were pretty average across the board: 4.52 forty, 37” vertical, 6.83 3-cone, though they are all pretty good numbers for a guy of his size. None of his numbers measured up with the top performers at the combine for WR’s, though there are not many 6’3 guys walking around either.

Reynolds has also had good production in college, here’s his stats and scouting report which I wrote earlier in the off-season:

Now, he’s not a perfect prospect, far from it, but he’s got a lot of strengths to like, and some weaknesses that he can hopefully clean up. Firstly, genetically he’s a long and frail guy. Bulking up a bit would definitely help him get stronger and probably would help with avoiding injuries. He’s not a YAC WR, and his route tree was pretty limited at Texas A&M, so that’ll have to be developed. Also, he played almost all of his snaps at right WR - he doesn’t offer much positional versatility in that regard.

With his weaknesses out of the way, let’s jump into the positives and strengths he brings to a WR core that sorely needs it:

The CB over-top of Reynolds is called in for a blitz leaving a free release for the WR. He eats up space between him and the defender, and makes a beautiful contested catch. Not only that, it looked insanely simple for him to bring that ball in.

Same game, same team, and look at the size and skill Reynolds offers in the red-zone. Runs a nice fade, high points the ball with ease, and rips down the ball for a gorgeous touchdown.

Once again a free release for Reynolds, he runs a hitch-and-go, the DB bites, and Reynolds gets over the top of the defender to make another tough contested catch for his second TD.

Reynolds uses a nice release to the outside of the DB here. He’s smart enough to set the DB up to think he’s going vertical, and he plants his outside foot to make a great cut across the face of the CB, which makes for an easy slant across the middle of the field for a 1st down.

With his QB in trouble and scrambling on this play, Reynolds is smart enough to keep his head turned back, push-off subtly on the DB, and work his way back to his QB. He makes the catch and also has field awareness getting his foot in-bounds prior to going out.

Here is Reynolds’ bread and butter. Stutter step off the LOS, takes outside release on the CB, and uses his long strides and underrated speed to get over-top of the DB and make an easy catch for a super long TD.

Reynolds is a vertical WR with great size and an amazing ability to make contested catches. His entire game stems off his ability to go deep and strike fear into DB’s getting over the top. Reynolds needs to develop his route running (not that he isn’t good at it, but wasn’t asked to run many), continue to work at high-pointing footballs, and potentially even bulk up a bit to be able to handle the rigors of the NFL. Reynolds also needs more work against the jam as CB’s in the league will make a lot more contact.

He offers something completely foreign to the Rams WR core. Size, contested catch ability, and a red-zone threat. Reynolds may not be a day 1 starter catching 80 passes in his rookie season, but he’s got a role carved out and hopefully can continue to expand his game to become the WR the Rams have been lacking for years.