ALLEN PARK -- Just how good could Kenny Golladay be?
You heard that question a lot when the Detroit Lions took the unheralded Northern Illinois receiver in the third round of the 2017 draft. And you heard it again when he ripped balls from the sky during a promising yet injury shortened rookie season.
Some were openly wondering whether he had the stuff to become WR1. A year later, that’s exactly what he became.
And according to one former teammate, he still hasn’t come close to sniffing his ceiling.
“I think the ceiling is as good as Odell Beckham,” said Northern Illinois EDGE Sutton Smith, the reigning MAC defensive player of the year and current NFL draft hopeful. "The ceiling is as high as he wants it to be. I can’t tell him what he can’t do. If he wants to be better than (Calvin Johnson), shoot, go be better than him. He can do it.
“He’s there for a reason, and he has to be the next No. 1 receiver. I believe in him 100 percent. I think he has the talent and ability to achieve that.”
That’s some towering praise from Smith. Then again, Smith saw some towering feats from Golladay during their two seasons together at Northern Illinois.
Golladay topped 1,000 yards receiving in each of his two seasons in DeKalb, becoming the first player in school history to hit that threshold in consecutive years -- and he did it while playing with a cast of quarterbacks that weren’t exactly ticketed for the pros. So while his rapid rise in Detroit has surprised some, don’t count Smith among them.
“Surprised? Good Lord, no,” Smith said. “I mean, we had good quarterbacks at NIU, don’t get me wrong. But let’s just face it, he didn’t have a pro quarterback. Now he has a pro quarterback, and he can get the ball thrown to him professionally, and he’s catching every flipping ball that is coming his way. He’s a freak.”
A freak?
“He’s a freak, and I don’t think there’s really anything else to say,” Smith said. “I mean, let’s face the facts. He’s what, almost 6-foot-5? Like, 220 pounds? And he runs a 4.4? I mean, he’s just a freak man.”
Golladay is listed at 6-foot-4 and 213 pounds, to be exact, and ran the 40-yard dash in 4.50 seconds at the combine. Still, Smith’s point stands. Golladay is a big-bodied wideout and knows how to use it. He routinely outmuscles smaller defensive backs for balls, and skies over others. Just consider that catch he made against Green Bay. You know the one.
Golladay high-pointed the football over Josh Jackson in the game at Ford Field last year, then stiff-armed Ha Ha Clinton-Dix like the safety had said something uncouth about his mother. That play went for 60 yards.
There was another where Golladay ripped a would-be interception out of the arms of Carolina’s James Bradberry, turned around and ran down the sideline for a first down. Another time, the Jets’ Trumaine Johnson intercepted Stafford on opening night, but Golladay hit him so hard that he dropped the football.
Guess who recovered it?
That’s just pure size and athleticism. Golladay had that as a rookie too, and showed he was capable of taking over games, including hauling in two fourth-quarter touchdowns in a comeback win against Arizona. His overall production was limited by a hamstring injury that cost him six games, not to mention playing alongside established veterans like Golden Tate and Marvin Jones, but the potential was obvious too.
“Marvin’s done a nice job, and Golden’s done a nice job, but they’ve go their niches," former Lions quarterback Dan Orlovsky said last offseason. "Neither of them really is that mismatch nightmare, especially in the red zone. Golladay has those qualities.”
And last season, he really put it together. He was playing like Detroit’s WR1 even before the Tate trade, and the Lions expected that to continue when they made that deadline deal. Golladay didn’t disappoint, finishing the year with a team-high 70 catches for 1,063 yards and five touchdowns. He also used that big body to catch 56.7 percent of his contested targets, which ranked seventh in the league. And even more will be expected him in 2019, as the Lions play their first full season without Tate since 2013.
According to Smith, he’s capable of it and so much more.
“I’ve seen him make one-handed catches, over and over,” Smith said. “I mean, I’ve seen him Moss several people. So, I mean, you just got to throw it up to him to see that type of stuff. Yeah, he’s a freak.”
Smith isn’t the same kind of pro prospect as Golladay, but he did rack up 29 sacks the last two years and capped his career by being named MAC defensive player of the year in 2018. He’s considered a late-round draft prospect or priority free agent. He says his old teammate has been hitting him up with advice throughout the draft process.
“He said just take it day by day,” Smith said. “It’s a long process, you never know what’s going to happen. It’s more the anxiety eating you up because you don’t know what’s going to happen, so you just got to channel that and be focused on you and prepare yourself for the next step.”