NFL Draft Prospects 2019: Wide Receiver - Emanuel Hall, Missouri
This kid earned scholarships not only for his play on the football field as an All-State performer from Tennessee but also as a track star. Emanuel Hall won a state championship in the high jump and two AAU Olympic Track gold medals in 2011. However, his production at Mizzou was off to a slow start initially, catching only 27 passes through his first two years as a reserve.
While fighting through a hamstring injury early in 2017, Hall finished with eight touchdowns and nation-second leading 24.8 yards per reception for over 800 yards. Last season he was voted second-team All-SEC with 22.4 yards a catch and another 828 yards despite playing in just nine games.
At 6’2”, 200 pounds, Hall’s track speed definitely shows up on the field, with him flying by defenders constantly. He beats people all the time with fades out wide and in the slot, where he uses his hands to avoid contact and stacks defenders. There were plays where Drew Lock just held onto the ball until his top receiver simply ran by the deep man in the defense’s two-high safety alignment and threw him bombs down the field.
In all but one game I watched, Hall killed the defense deep at least once. In 2017 he had two touchdowns of over 60 yards versus Georgia. Last year he put up a ridiculous 14.3 yards per target. Hall is very sudden to create separation on slant routes. His arm-drumming and footwork off the snap put defenders off balance immediately. He shows a lot of variety in his releases, with stutter-steps and swim moves.
Hall can decelerate pretty quickly on curl and hitch routes as well. He is highly elusive after the catch and had on one my favorites move on tape where he made a Wyoming defender look absolutely stupid. Missouri utilized Hall on slip screens and let him make things happen with space as well. This is an extremely competitive player who makes sure to let defenders know.
Hall guides people around a bit but doesn’t really give you much as a blocker. He gets pushed into the boundary on some occasions and doesn’t have any space to keep his feet down in bounds.
Hall dropped eight passes in 2017 and has some double-catches on tape. His route tree was highly limited in Mizzou’s Air Raid offense, where he either went straight downfield or broke inside on about 80 percent of the passing snaps. He’s had nagging injuries throughout his career and never played a full season as a starter.
Hall cut his number of drops in half last season and displayed the ability to high-point the ball. To me, he is the second-biggest deep threat in this class after Oklahoma’s Marquise Brown. Not only does he eat up cushion with long strides off the snap, but he also has that final gear to create late separation. Hall definitely needs to develop a more complete route-tree to keep defenses guessing, but I think he could be a valuable specialist for some team.
Grade: Mid-third