Julian Fleming 2023 NFL Draft Scouting Report

Background: 

• ESPN’s No. 1 wide receiver and overall player in the 2018 recruiting class

• Pennsylvania’s career leader in receiving yards (5,514) and touchdown catches (77)
• Played football, basketball, and track in high school. Won the Class AA 100-meter dash at the PIAA Championships 

System: 

• Scheme tendencies: Spread
• 2022 projected role: Top-four target for Buckeyes’ passing game 

Pros: With a limited amount of production (19 catches over two seasons on 32 targets), the focus on studying Julian Fleming is the body type, athleticism, and technical flashes. Fleming offers a sturdy frame that has already proven to be an asset to him given his ability to play through contact, compete as a blocker, and establish leverage at the top of routes/catch point. Despite a limited amount of targets to evaluate, Fleming illustrates stong and confident hands while regularly plucking the football away from his frame with ease. He is well coached by Brian Hartline and has already been tasked with lining up inside and outside and on both sides of the formation. Fleming has shown plenty of promise with his ability to establish leverage early as a route-runner, adjust on the fly, and make himself available by finding space to settle into. 

Cons: While Julian Fleming is a highly-touted recruit (like several others at Ohio State), he’s only on the radar at this point because of that. He has plenty to prove on the field, especially when it comes to claiming a larger percentage of the targets and how capable he is producing with more volume now that Chris Olave and Garrett Wilson are in the NFL. Does he present an attractive enough option to be a heavily featured component of the passing game with the likes of Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr., and Emeka Egbuka among others on the depth chart? Fleming doesn’t appear to be an overly dynamic athlete and my exposures revealed a player that struggled to win vertically. I didn’t see him find success stacking corners vertically and separating down the field. Can he be more than a possession guy? Is he skilled after the catch? Can he add more branches to his route tree? Fleming has a lot to prove in 2022.

Julian Fleming NFL Draft Scouting Report by Joe Marino