NFL Analysis
4/26/24
4 min read
Caelen Carson NFL Draft 2024: Combine Results, Scouting Report For Wake Forest CB
The 2024 NFL Draft is here, making it an excellent time to highlight some of the class' best players with scouting reports. Each report will include strengths, weaknesses and background information.
Here's our report on Caelen Carson.
Caelen Carson's 2024 NFL COMBINE RESULTS
- Height: 5-foot-11
- Weight: 199
- 40-Time: 4.53
- 10-Yard Split: 1.54
- Vertical: 35.5"
- Broad Jump: 9'6"
Caelen Carson 2024 NFL DRAFT SCOUTING REPORT
STRENGTHS:
- Good size and overall length with a strong athletic profile for corner. Experience playing outside and the slot.
- Strong mirror match press man corner with patience and fluid transition to open his hips and attach to receivers.
- Targeted physicality in press man, contacting the receiver off his release. Physical component to his coverage.
- Best in press man with fluid hips to match releases and stay in phase and jam with physicality, staying balanced.
- Showed plus plant-and-drive burst and quickness from off coverage. Fluid change of direction with quick feet.
- Some off-coverage reps in which he showed strong stopping ability and the re-direct to play route and the throw.
- Showed necessary play speed to carry vertical routes from press and off when he got his body turned.
- Strong playing personality. Aggressive and competitive. Willing to play physically in coverage and the run game.
WEAKNESSES:
- More smooth and fluid in his movement than sudden and twitchy. An easy mover but doesn’t have elite athletic traits.
- In mirror match press man, he got too handsy and grabby through the route. That needs to be cleaned up
- Overall, he showed a tendency to be too physical through the vertical stem and at the top of the route stem.
- When playing press man coverage, he did not effectively get his head around and locate the ball on vertical routes.
- Struggled in off-coverage with transition vs. vertical routes. Sticky and segmented when opening his hips.
- In off-coverage, he lost contact with the receiver at the top of the route stem, giving up too much space.
NFL TRANSITION:
Carson is a strong corner prospect with good size and length. His plus athletic profile allows him to be effective as a press man and off-coverage. However, at this point, he is meaningfully better as a press man corner with mirror match and targeted physicality.
Carson has extensive experience playing man and zone coverage. While he is not a sudden, explosive athlete, he is smooth, fluid and played with a strong physical component. Carson did not look as comfortable in off-coverage with his pedal too upright, resulting in tight and segmented transitions with some stiffness changing direction and opening his hips on vertical routes.
He was more efficient with his movement in off-coverage, planting and driving downhill with some quickness and burst. Overall, Carson does not possess an elite traits profile, but he has more than enough quickness, fluidity and competitiveness, especially in press man, to develop into a starting corner. The one thing you love is his willingness to play physically and tackle.
OTHER NOTES:
Carson played four seasons at Wake Forest, becoming a full-time starter in 2022. He came out of Maryland as a three-star recruit after playing corner and wide receiver in high school.
Carson aligned to the boundary and the field in Wake Forest’s defense. Against Florida State, he predominantly matched up to Keon Coleman, playing significant snaps of press man and off-coverage.
In 2023, Carson played predominantly on the outside (more than 500 snaps) with less than 100 snaps in the slot. He was predominantly an outside corner at Wake Forest.
