With the 102nd pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Minnesota Vikings took Tai Felton, a wide receiver from Maryland. Vikings fans had to wait a long time between the team taking Donovan Jackson at pick No. 24 and Felton, the last pick of the third round. The wait was extended because Minnesota traded down from 97 to 102, in which it acquired capital to later trade down and acquire Sam Howell as the team’s backup QB.
Adding Felton, or any receiver, may have been a bit of a surprise. The interior defensive line or corner looked like bigger needs, but the Vikings had room to add another WR. You can argue WR was a need for the Vikings, even if Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison are an incredible pair at the top of the position group.
Jalen Nailor performed well as Minnesota’s WR3 last year but had some notable drops. Beyond him, the Vikings replaced the departing Brandon Powell and Trent Sherfield with Rondale Moore, who is coming off a major knee injury, and Tim Jones, who has primarily been a special-teamer throughout his career. That’s not significant competition, so Felton will have a path to early playing time if Addison is injured or the league suspends him for DUI.
Felton also has the benefit of special teams experience. He played on Maryland’s punt coverage unit consistently throughout his four-year career and played as a blocker on the team’s punt-return unit his senior season. He played extensively on the team’s kickoff coverage unit in his sophomore and junior years. Felton has limited return experience, with six career kickoff returns in his second year and two punt returns this last season.
As a receiver, Felton had massive production during his final college season. After posting a solid 48/723/6 line in 2023, his 1,124 receiving yards in 2024 ranked 15th nationally, and third in the Big Ten. The two Big Ten players ranked above him, Jeremiah Smith and Tyler Warren, each played 16 games to Felton’s 12, due to their team’s College Football Playoff success.
Felton was the Big Ten’s leader in receiving yards at the end of the college football regular season. Felton’s 96 receptions were tied for fourth in the nation, and he was tied for 20th with nine receiving TDs. Maryland targeted him a ton, with 143 targets in 12 games. Ja’Marr Chase led the NFL with 175 targets last year. If you pro-rated Felton’s targets to a 17-game season, he would have had 202.
He followed up his productive final season with a big-time showing of athleticism at the NFL combine. Felton ran a blazing 4.37-second 40-yard dash, with elite 10- and 20-yard splits. He jumped an impressive 39.5″ in the vertical and 10’10” in the broad jumps, also elite numbers. He’s decently tall, measuring in at 6’1 1/8″, but at 182 lbs. is very light for his height. Felton also has surprisingly short arms for his height, at just 30″, just 9″ hands, and did not stun in his agilities, running a middling 4.27-second short shuttle.
Overall, Felton is a bit undersized for a receiver but has an otherworldly explosion. Given his mediocre agility, he’s somewhat linear, but his speed and explosive ability combine to overcome that limitation and give him an elite 9.20 RAS.
That’s an overview of Felton’s production and athleticism, but what does he look like on the football field? I dove into four of Felton’s 2024 games — against Villanova, USC, Minnesota, and Penn State. I also watched a highlight reel that included many of Felton’s catches over his college career to supplement some traits I couldn’t see in the games I watched.
Let’s dive into the tape.
Releases
Felton has good footwork for releases against press, consistently moving forward at the snap and closing space on defenders, not wasting steps or time. However, he doesn’t seem to know how to use his hands to complement his release work.
On the play below, you can see the explosive movement, and he tries to dip his shoulder to avoid contact, but the DB is able to get his hands on him, make the turn, and stay in phase with him down the field. A club-swim or other hand-fighting could slow the DB down and allow Felton to stack the defender vertically, creating separation for a throw. As it is, the ball was underthrown on the play, and Felton benefited from a DPI call. However, a better release and throw could have led to a TD.
Felton’s lack of mass and hands technique shows up in the release game. In the play below, Penn State runs an inverted Tampa 2 concept with the cloud corners pressing their receivers. The Vikings see this type of coverage a lot in response to having Justin Jefferson, so it’s a situation Felton will have to face regularly when he sees the field.
On the play, you can see Felton close out space well once again, but he does not have a good attack when he contacts the defender, throwing a hand ineffectively into his chest. On contact, you can see Felton’s pads raise up and his torso go straight vertical as his stride slows. This sluggish release allows the defender to carry him vertically to the safety, completely eliminating any window for a throw.
This wasn’t just an issue against Penn State, one of the best teams in the country last year. The lack of play strength on releases showed up against Villanova, of all teams, on the play below. Here, the corner gets his hands on Felton and is able to push him out of bounds, turning him into an ineligible receiver.
Felton’s footwork and quickness on releases are a good start, but there is clear room for improvement on the release part of his game, both with his hand fighting and play strength.
route running
Felton shows the athletic tools to become a good route runner, but, like with his release package, he hasn’t honed his skills to the point where he will excel on an NFL field. Felton’s speed and burst are clear, and he flashes the ability to decelerate to make sharp turns at cuts. However, he has multiple technical faults that allow college DBs to cover him.
Let’s start with the good. Felton displays a good weight drop in his hips, allowing him to turn and make breaks. The comeback below is a good example, where Felton is able to convert his route to a comeback in three steps over approximately two yards. He also comes back to the football, which takes the CB, who is squatting on the route, out of the picture.
Felton can also cut at speed, like on the circus route below. This break allows him to flatten to where the ball is thrown, and the throw causes him to drift back a couple of yards, but he could have flattened to the sideline if the ball was placed there.
That speed cut is probably Felton’s best asset as a route runner right now. On the below Drift route, Maryland runs a Dagger concept, which the Vikings commonly use. The WR to the inside gets completely dominated by the slot, and does not do his job on a clear out, but Felton does a good job against a defender with inside leverage. He gets the CB to turn his hips to the outside, and then is able to speed cut to the inside, where he should be coming wide open across the field, if his teammate wasn’t in his space.
Unfortunately, the movement skills are about where Felton’s toolbox ends as a route runner. He has multiple flaws and tells that will get exposed at the NFL level. The first is that he consistently raises his pads one to two steps before entering his breaks. As a receiver, you want to keep your pads forward as long as possible to give your opponent the impression that you’re running full speed vertically. Felton doesn’t do that at this point.
The play below also has wasted steps, which you see from Felton regularly. While he has the body control to make quick turns, as shown above, he doesn’t execute them consistently enough. The video below is slowed down after the full speed, so you can see Felton’s issue. The first three steps of his break are fine, but by the fourth step, he should have his hips fully around and take a long step to start running across the field. Instead, he baby steps, and it slows his break down.
This lack of precision stands out compared to a player like Jordan Addison, who broke off this comeback after three steps and turned the opposing CB well up the field to create easy separation.
Felton’s eyes also betray him when running routes, clueing defenders in to his intentions. On the play below, he lifts his pads and looks over his shoulder for the ball, clearly indicating his break. His turn is pretty nice and shows the weight drop above, but CBs also have that ability, as the defender displays on the play. Turning in phase with Felton, he could break on the ball if it were thrown. In the NFL, you need to have the skills to make breaks effectively and sell a different break to your opponent, forcing them out of position.
Felton doesn’t have precision in his movements as a route runner. Take a look at the next two plays to see the difference. On the first, Felton doesn’t do much to sell the deep safety and rounds his cut to the corner, running a wide arc.
Justin Jefferson runs a similar route. You can see a hard shoulder fake that gets the deep safety to take a false step inside, and then a sharp cut with an angled, not rounded path to the 40-yard line. This has Jefferson moving on an angle at the catch point, leading his momentum towards the end zone, while Felton is running flat toward the sideline.
Felton will need to learn the final aspect of route running: stacking opposing DBs on vertical routes. After you run past a defender on a vertical route, you want to tilt your route back inside to be straight on top of him. On the play below, Felton has an opportunity to do that but fails to utilize it.
By contrast, check out this play from Jalen Nailor at Michigan State, where he fights through contact to earn a stack against a defender. This type of ability, more than pure speed, allows players to win deep at the NFL level.
To be fair to Felton, while I didn’t see him stack defenders in the games I watched, there are a few instances of him doing it throughout the highlight reel below. It’s something I believe he can do, but he will need to become much more consistent at it to succeed in the NFL.
This is a pretty negative view of Felton’s current state as a route runner, but it’s important to remember that he shows the physical skills to become a good route runner. He and the Vikings have a lot of work to do to get him there, but the flashes above and in the highlight reel show a player who can become a very good route runner.
zone feel
Against zone, Felton shows movement that flows with the offense’s timing and will find open space. On the Glance RPO below, he does a good job of slowing down to allow his QB a window between the LBs and fights to stay up until a convoy of teammates arrives to push him into the end zone.
Felton can find open space even if the play design has broken down. In the below, the USC defense anticipates Maryland’s screen call, and the initial throw isn’t there. Felton works to find open space, the quarterback delivers the ball, and Felton is rewarded with a nice gain.
I think Felton has room for growth with his zone feel. On the play below, he sits down just outside the hashes on an in-breaking route. The QB scrambles, and his throw is wide of Felton inside the hashes. Rather than being an inaccurate throw, I think the QB expected Felton to be directly on the hash and wanted to move him away from the underneath and deep defender. Felton’s spacing led to the throw going wide.
Felton also needs to develop feel for underneath defenders while running through zones. Maryland often asked Felton to run underneath routes for yards-after-catch opportunities, but the LBs backed off in most scenarios, allowing Felton free movement. When they came forward into his path, he struggled to avoid them, like on this play against Penn State.
The play below is a downfield screen for Felton against Penn State’s zero-blitz concept. Maryland is unlucky that the Nittany Lions have zone droppers directly where Felton is cutting underneath, but Felton himself gets very much tangled up among the defenders, eliminating a potential throw even if the quarterback hadn’t gotten taken down by a free runner. A more physical player would have held up better to the contact.
catch technique
In contrast to his raw route running, Felton has good catch technique. He will address balls at their highest point, and with his hands extended away from his frame if the pass is at his chest or above. While I criticized his route running on this play above, the play below shows a good example of his quality catching technique.
Felton also has the radius to catch passes outside his frame. He can adjust to balls thrown over his head or behind him well, like on the play below.
Felton also shows underhand catch technique on lower throws and can transition to being a runner quickly from that technique.
I came away with a really strong impression of Felton’s technique as a pass catcher. It’s worth noting that PFF charted him with eight drops in 2024, although he was only credited with one in the four games I was able to watch, and obviously a highlight video isn’t going to show you drops.
I don’t think Felton has an underlying technique issue, so they may just be focus drops, which I’m not concerned about from a long-term perspective. It just bears mentioning as his 7.7% drop rate was above average for a college receiver, and would have ranked about 40th among 112 NFL receivers. Not terrible, but something to pay attention to.
contested catches
Felton struggles to catch passes in contested situations. He maintains his good catch technique, but sometimes cannot physically withstand the hits he’s taking. Here’s a nice contested-catch win against Minnesota.
By contrast, here’s a contested-catch loss from later in the same game.
PFF charted Felton as converting just seven of 18 contested-catch opportunities. That’s a poor 38.9% rate, and DBs only get stronger in the NFL. He will need to improve his play strength significantly to get better at contested catches moving forward.
after-catch ability
Felton is a dynamic threat with the ball in his hands after the catch. He understands leverage and can turn away from defender, and has the ability to break defenders down and make them miss. He also has short-area acceleration that allows him to run around defenders in the after-catch game.
On the play below, you can see him feel and turn away from the defender driving on him after the catch, plus good acceleration to run away from the CB, the second player trying to tackle him. He wins the edge and gets a first down.
On the play below, you see the wiggle Felton has in a compressed area. The safety tries to break down to tackle him, but Felton makes a second move and forces a missed tackle, getting up the sideline for a first down.
Felton has elite speed in the open field, which allows him to pull away from defenders. The best example of this is his long TD against UConn, where he makes multiple defenders miss and outruns everyone to the end zone.
Still, Felton struggles with the way he reads out screen blocks. He also goes in the direction where a defender has advantageous leverage rather than following his blockers. That leads to him dancing and prevents him from getting the yardage he should on many different plays. Athleticism helped fill that gap in college, but he must make better decisions at the NFL level.
blocking
Felton regularly has play-strength issues when he tries to block. He’s willing to block, but his play strength and execution simply aren’t there at this point.
The play below is a nice example of Felton being a willing downfield blocker. He sells a route, and when he sees the RB has been sprung on the run, he looks for work and blocks a safety downfield. The problem is that he comes in with wide hands and attacks the middle of the defender rather than trying to turn him to one side. This allows the defender to quickly disengage and make the tackle on the RB.
The play below shows how Felton’s lack of size impacts him as a blocker. The opposing slot defender runs over him, causing him to fall to the ground.
Felton needs to work with his positioning and handfighting to prevent defenders from disengaging from him, which happened consistently on screens, like the one below.
Felton’s willingness and pure effort as a blocker are good signs; better blocking might come with improved play strength. Here’s a fun highlight against a blitzing safety from Villanova that shows his feisty demeanor.
Summary
Tai Felton is a dynamic athlete with speed that jumps off the tape. He also has the deceleration and lateral agility to become a good route runner and after-the-catch threat. Felton has good footwork to keep moving forward against press, and the weight drop to make sharp turns and cuts. He lacks the hand-fighting technique needed to consistently beat press and tips off his routes by raising his pads. Felton’s small frame leads to him getting knocked off his path and significantly slowed down when defenders contact him.
Catching the football, Felton does a good job of extending his hands away from his body and using the correct technique to attack a target. He smoothly tucks the ball away to transition upfield after the catch. While he shows good technique in contested-catch situations, he lacks the play strength to consistently make those contested catches.
After the catch, Felton’s transitions and quickness allow him to easily make the first defender miss on routes like curls. His explosive speed allows him to take balls in the open field to the house, and he shows the burst to get the edge on corners. Felton even has the wiggle to make defenders miss in a phone booth. However, he’s inconsistent reading out screens, often choosing the wrong path. Defenders can bring him down pretty easily on first contact because he lacks the contact balance to fight through tackles.
As a blocker, Felton lacks technical and physical prowess. He gets overpowered by defenders and opponents quickly disengage from his blocks, meaning he regularly allows his defender into the play to make the tackle. Felton shows a willingness to block and the effort to look for work as a blocker, so hopefully that will improve in time.
Despite his impressive athletic traits, Felton’s skill set doesn’t show a player who is ready to contribute in a significant role in the NFL immediately. He has a good path to the roster since he contributed heavily on special teams at Maryland, but he will need to be eased into work as a receiver.
Routes that don’t force him to use technical skills, and instead show off his speed — like the deep crossing routes the Vikings like to run — would be a good way to get him on the field early and grow his confidence as a player. Still, it’s unlikely he’ll compete for Minnesota’s WR3 role in Year 1 because he cannot be left on the field as a blocker on any down that has run ambiguity.
Long-term, Felton could develop the ability to play all three receiver positions, as his height and quickness will hopefully allow him to get off press in the future. However, he needs to be hidden and kept off the line of scrimmage to avoid getting beaten up by defenders, so his ideal role is as a vertical stretch slot or Z receiver.
Felton will be 22 for the entire 2025 season, and was relatively young for a WR prospect in this class. Of players drafted, only Tetairoa McMillan, Matthew Golden, Luther Burden, and Elic Ayomanor were younger than him. There’s a lot of room for him to grow — physically and mentally — as a football player. Felton, WR coach Keenan McCardell, and head strength coach Joe Distor Jr. will have their work cut out for them as the Vikings try to develop Felton into a starting receiver in the NFL.
