NFL Draft Prospects 2019: Wide Receiver - Hakeem Butler, Iowa State
After the tragic loss of his mother to cancer, Hakeem Butler moved to Texas in order to live with his cousins at an early age. He was just a two-star recruit and barely qualified academically, but Iowa State offered him a full scholarship.
Butler repaid the Cyclones with an average of 17 yards per catch and seven touchdowns in 2017, which earned him honorable mentions among Big XII coaches.
Last year as their go-to weapon in the passing game, he went off for over 1300 yards on 22 yards per reception, which ranked top ten nationally and earned him second-team all-conference honors.
Butler is a long strider at about 6’6’’, 225 pounds with sub-4.5 speed and quick acceleration out of his stance. The former basketball standout goes vertical and snatches the ball at its highest point.
He converted to football because he wanted to let out more of his aggressive side and it shows in the way he runs with the ball in his hands, where he displays good vision and loves to run over smaller defensive backs.
He is constantly fighting and twisting for extra yardage and has a pretty mean stiff-arm in his arsenal. Butler excels in contested catch situations and is strong in terms of breaking tackles.
He made one of the best plays of the year in 2018 against Kansas, when he mossed a defender 40 yards downfield and then pushed that guy off to walk into the end-zone. He became the go-to guy whenever the Cyclones needed a play and came through for them constantly.
With his large paws, Butler often only needs one hand to bring in the catch. It is impossible to truly count how many spectacular plays he came up with for ISU. He could not be brought down by the Oklahoma defense last season, as he made several catches on back-shoulder throws and wrestled through tackles.
There really might have been no better receiver in college football last year at making catches through contact than this kid.
With that being said, Butler is more than just a big jump-ball specialist, who is tough to bring down after the catch. The former Cyclone star is one of the best all-around receivers coming out of college.
He has experience lining up on either side, in the slot and out wide. He ran square-ins and digs, went vertical, broke outside from tight splits, opened space underneath on curl routes with slight push-offs and even ran screen passes at Iowa State.
Against inner-state rival Iowa last season he ran a whip-route on fourth-and-one, which only didn’t convert because the corner dragged him down out of desperation, which is mind-blowing for a 6’6” receiver.
He can sink his hips surprisingly well and shows attention to detail in his route-running. In addition to that, he displays excellent body-control and awareness of the sideline, where he shows impressive toe-taps.
Despite being one of the bigger guys at the position, he led all receivers in college football with 721 receiving yards on passes thrown 20+ yards and he averaged a crazy 22.0 yards per reception last year. As a blocker, Butler shows excellent grip and leg-drive to push defenders around and you rarely see him lose control.
Butler gets caught up with press-coverage early on in his routes. Now, that may be to some degree because he didn’t face a lot of it unless he played Texas these last couple of years, but with how long his strides are and how little you see him actually break down into his routes instead of gliding into them, there may be some concern about his quickness of foot.
He doesn’t always catch the ball with the diamond in-between his hands, clapping at it, letting it get into his body and showing some double-catches on tape. That led to a total of 12 drops last season, which is the one big reason I wouldn’t quite grab him in the first round.
Outside of inconsistent hands, there are very few flaws in Butler’s game. When he is active with his hands, he seems capable of releasing either way against press coverage and knows how to reduce his size when making cuts, which are the two most important areas for such receivers to work on coming into the pros.
He had stretches of sheer dominance last season and could end up being the top receiver from this draft class if he stops dropping the ball at that kind of rate.
Grade: Late first / early second