Parris Campbell is gonna be so much fun to watch with the Colts

The Indianapolis Colts picked Parris Campbell 59th overall in the NFL Draft, late in the second round. Here’s what Stephen White had to say about the Ohio State receiver ahead of the draft:

Parris Campbell is a very intriguing prospect.

For one, I’m not sure if I have ever done a breakdown where a wide receiver had not one, but two 70+ yard catches in four games.

For two, I am very sure I have never done a breakdown where a prospect had two catches of over 70 yards apiece, and neither of those catches came on a go route.

After watching those two receptions, you shouldn’t need me to tell you Campbell can fly, but just in case you wanted confirmation he blazed a 4.31-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. He isn’t just fast — that dude is “them stray dogs are after me” fast!

What makes Campbell so intriguing to me, however, is that Ohio State didn’t run him on a bunch of true go routes in the four games I watched.

Or any, really.

Like, uhm, WTF, Urban?

I’m not saying Campbell has to run a ton of go routes to have success or to bring value to an offense. Hell, if anything, Ohio State made sure the rest of the world was aware Campbell doesn’t need to catch deep balls to be successful and productive.

However, it was definitely curious the Buckeyes didn’t even try to get him the ball down the field that way in four whole games. Especially when Campbell looks like he could run right by damn near any cornerback in college football.

I will probably never get the answer to why Ohio State didn’t incorporate him that way into its offense, but I can’t help but wonder what kind of a deep threat he could have been in college, and may be in the pros.

Rather than deep balls, what I actually got to watch was Campbell run a bunch of shallow crossers for four games instead. *loud sigh*

Mind you, he did get busy on most of those shallow routes.

He had a real knack for knowing how to run them, too. Campbell could tell when he needed to throttle it down so as not to run himself into danger.

He also knew to turn on the afterburners when he had a defender in trail position and, man, did he leave some guys in his dust.

But the good thing is when the contact came, as it always will sooner or later on crossing routes, Campbell still caught the ball, secured it, took the lick, and got up to go back to the huddle like it was nothing.

Now, I was being a little facetious when I say he only ran a bunch of shallow crossers because I can’t get over the lack of deep balls this kid saw, tbh. The truth is Ohio State not only had Campbell run a wide array of short to intermediate routes, the coaches also moved him around in the formations so he ended up playing quite a bit both in the slot and out wide.

The overwhelming majority of the routes he ran were of the short to medium variety, however, no matter where he lined up. Quick outs, 5-yard stops, screens, and a few corner routes mixed in to go along with the shallow crossers made up most of Campbell’s route tree in the four games I watched.

I didn’t get to see any corners press him on the outside (probably because of that “oh shit” speed of his), so I can’t be sure what his releases off the line of scrimmage in that situation would look like. But I was really impressed with his route running all the same.

He didn’t mess around or hesitate at the line of scrimmage at all, he was quick in and out of his breaks, and he was patient in setting up his routes, never tipping anything ahead of time. He also understood how to find the holes in a zone and sit down and make himself available to his quarterback.

If there was something that stood out about Campbell other than his speed, it was how smooth he moved around on the field. He never had any wasted motion while he was running, and he seemed to stay on balance at all times. I actually could see why some folks would question his speed if they only watched him run shorter routes, because he never really looks like he is moving that fast.

Not until he runs by a guy who briefly appears to have an angle on him.

I actually found a perfect example of this in the Michigan State game. Campbell scored a 1-yard touchdown on a jet sweep to the right where he basically went into the end zone untouched.

Now, from the wide angle it didn’t look like Campbell was running all that fast. If anything it looked like the defenders just took bad angles. On the slo-mo replay from the end zone, however, you can see he was absolutely scooting.

For a frame of reference, just look at the Michigan State defender, No. 2, who evidently has Campbell in man-to-man and is mirroring him motioning across the formation. That guy is even with Campbell when Campbell gets the ball, but by the time Campbell crosses the goal line, No. 2 — who, as you can see, was unblocked — was beaten so fast that he didn’t even so much as lay a finger on Campbell until after he was already in the end zone.

Maybe No. 2 did hesitate a little as he was running across, worried about Campbell cutting back inside, but don’t miss the fact Campbell had to give ground to avoid a Michigan State defensive end almost immediately after he got the football, too.

Campbell mashed the gas and hit that vrooooom, and it was all over for No. 2 and the rest of the Spartans’ defense, plain and simple.

Another plus for Campbell is he showed he has good hands in those four games.

When I said he looked smooth, that included how easily he made catches look. He consistently brought the ball in the “right” way with his thumbs together, and he looked really natural snatching balls out of the air.

While he didn’t have any back-shoulder fade, 50-50 type balls thrown to him in those four games, Campbell was able to repeatedly make catches where the pass was over his head, or otherwise away from his body without any problems at all.

He ended up with two drops in four games, which obviously isn’t perfect, but this is a guy who caught at least eight balls(!) in all but one of those four games.

Those drops look more like aberrations than a pattern to me, is what I’m trying to say, so I’m not too concerned about them.

Back to those 50-50 deep balls, or the lack thereof: It is worth mentioning that Campbell doesn’t look all that big. He is actually 6’0 and 205 pounds, and he also turned in a 40-inch vertical at the combine in addition to that fantastic 40 time.

A guy that fast, who can jump that high, who is also at least 6 feet tall, who also has pretty good hands doesn’t see any true fade routes thrown his way?

In this day and age?

Somebody make it make sense!

That ain’t gonna happen in the NFL, you can bet that!

Maybe the only real knock I have on Campbell based on his film is that he is a mediocre blocker. Most of his blocks, the ones that he even tried, ended up looking pretty much like this one.

Really and truly, though, I don’t care about that. I’d like him to try to make some blocks, no doubt, and he often looked like he was trying to make them on tape.

He just wasn’t very good at it.

Maybe he will improve as a blocker on the next level, maybe he won’t. But the truth is a playmaker like Campbell can get away with being an average-at-best blocker and nobody will complain if he puts up numbers.

Wide receivers get paid the big bucks to make big catches, not big blocks. And this here Campbell guy?

Oh, he can make the big catches.

To be honest with you, I’d have no problem taking Campbell in the first round even if he was only going to play in the slot. The Buckeyes used him quite a bit on third-and-short to medium, and he almost always seemed to get enough for a first down.

He could be a guy who gets 100 catches a year in the NFL easily on a bunch of short-to-intermediate routes, and he has already shown me he can inflict tremendous damage on some of those shorter throws with his run-after-catch ability.

But it is that deep-ball potential that really seals the deal for me with Campbell.

I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t have just as much big-play ability on downfield throws as he would on the shorter throws, if not more. That should be exciting as hell for which ever team decides to select him, and scary as hell for the rest of the teams in the division.

I can just about guarantee there are a bunch of offensive coordinators in the NFL who would love to to showcase Campbell in their offense. There’s just so many things you can do with him, I wouldn’t even know where to start. I’m not saying he could duplicate Tyreek Hill’s success, or that he is even as fast as Hill, but I would love to see Campbell in that kind of role for an NFL team. I get excited just thinking about it.

I’m sure I’m not alone.

It’s hard to compare him to the other wide receivers I’ve broken down so far just because those other guys all had opportunities to make plays on deep balls down the field.

What I will say, however, is that, barring injury, Campbell may have the highest ceiling of them all.

The only thing he lacks compared to the other guys is an inch or two in height, and he can at least potentially mitigate that with his leaping ability. He likely won’t be the first wide receiver taken later this month, but don’t be surprised if, down the road, his production eclipses theirs.

I definitely won’t be.

For the purposes of this breakdown, I watched former Ohio State wide receiver Parris Campbell play against Indiana, Michigan State, Michigan, and Washington. Those represented the sixth, 10th, 12th, and 14th games on Ohio State’s schedule last season, respectively.