Anthony
Gould.
Anthony
Gould.
Oregon St.· 5'8"· 174 lb· 4.39s 40
"A 174-pound track star with a punt-return resume: Indianapolis was not drafting a receiver at 142, it was drafting the fastest way to change field position."Pre-draft read
Gould is a 5-8, 174-pound speed slot and return specialist who wins the rep before contact. He lines up inside to the field, releases with a flat, low first step, and eats cushion in a hurry — the 1.49 ten-yard split shows up on tape as corners bailing at the snap. Oregon State fed him vertical stems, slot fades and jet motion, and he tracked the deep ball naturally over either shoulder.
The second trait is return juice: first-team All-Pac-12 punt returner in 2022, two scores. In the pass game he is a stem-and-go player more than a route technician — he separates late against off coverage, but press hands and traffic shrink his catch radius. The signature is straight-line acceleration inside a frame defenders simply lose in space.
Vertical, motion-heavy spread that manufactures touches — jet sweeps, slot fades and play-action shots — paired with a return-first special teams role.
Year 1: full-time punt and kick returner plus 8-12 offensive snaps of vertical slot and jet motion. Ceiling: a third receiver who takes the top off coverage on 25-30 snaps a game while owning both return jobs.
A condensed-formation, heavy-personnel offense that asks its slot to win inside against press-man safeties and block down on linebackers in the run game; his 174-pound frame gets erased on those reps.
His value is tied to return volume, so a team with an entrenched returner drops his roster case to almost nothing.
Anthony Gould | Wide Receiver | Oregon State | 2023 Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
Full 2023 season cut: vertical stems, slot fades and manufactured touches.
NFL Draft Film Ep 964: Anthony Gould / WR / Oregon State / 2023 / Full Highlights
Film-room breakdown of his 2023 tape and route usage.
Anthony Gould All-Purpose Oregon State | 2024 East West Shrine breakdown
All-purpose and return work plus Shrine Bowl week evaluation.
Undersized field-stretcher and proven punt returner whose football identity was speed in space rather than a complete receiver profile. Everything about the evaluation started with the 4.39 forty and a 39.5-inch vertical on a 174-pound frame, and ended with the question of how many snaps an NFL offense could actually give him.
The production curve was late and thin. He was a role player and specialist through 2021 and 2022, earning first-team All-Pac-12 as a punt returner with two return touchdowns, before finally breaking out as a full-time target in 2023 with 44 catches for 718 yards in 11 games. That is one season of real volume, and it came against off coverage that respected his speed. The flags were obvious: arms under 30 inches, a narrow route tree, and almost no evidence of winning through contact at the catch point.
The board treated him accordingly. He was a Day 3 name across the industry, roughly a fourth-to-sixth round grade, valued first as a returner with gadget upside. Indianapolis taking him at 142 was a special-teams pick with a lottery ticket attached — buy the return job now, hope the vertical slot role shows up later.
- 01
Top-end speed
4.39 forty with a 1.49 ten-yard split, and it plays on tape: corners open their hips at the snap rather than test him vertically.
- 02
Proven return production
first-team All-Pac-12 punt returner in 2022 with two return touchdowns, including a three-return, 104-yard game against Montana State.
- 03
Explosive lower half
39.5-inch vertical and a strong broad jump give him legitimate ball-tracking pop on deep shots despite the size.
- 04
Deep-ball tracking
comfortable finding the ball over either shoulder on go routes and slot fades without breaking stride.
- 05
Manufactured-touch value
jet motion, sweeps and screens all become live plays because one missed angle turns into a chunk gain.
- 01
Frame
5-8 and 174 pounds with 29-5/8 inch arms, the smallest end of the NFL receiver spectrum in both play strength and catch radius.
- 02
Press and contact
physical corners can reroute him at the line, and traffic over the middle takes catches away from him.
- 03
Route tree
his college usage leaned on verticals, fades and manufactured touches rather than a full complement of NFL route breaks.
- 04
One year of volume
only one season above 30 catches, so the receiver projection rests on a thin sample against off coverage.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.39sp50
- Vertical
- 39.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 129inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.16sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Oregon State | 13 | 13 | 185 | 1 |
| 2022 | Oregon State | 10 | 27 | 457 | 3 |
| 2023 | Oregon State | 11 | 44 | 718 | 2 |
| Career | — | 34 | 84 | 1360 | 6 |
CFBD box score covers 2021-2023 (2019 was a redshirt year and the shortened 2020 COVID season is not in the CFBD receiving file; those snaps are left unrecorded rather than zero-filled). Punt/kick return production is not part of the WR stat keys: he was first-team All-Pac-12 as a 2022 punt returner with two return touchdowns.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Long-term roster life as a returner with a handful of gadget snaps per game and negligible receiving production.
Undersized return ace whose speed forces a package of manufactured touches — the realistic best case for a fifth-round specialist.
Frame and lack of route volume cap him at a churn special-teamer if the return job ever goes elsewhere.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
The Colts used him exactly the way the board projected. As a rookie in 2024 he played eight games, caught one pass for 23 yards, and lived on the return units, including a healthy scratch in October after a mental error in the return game. Year two brought more volume in the phase that mattered and none in the one that did not: 11 games, two catches for six yards, but 647 kickoff-return yards and 127 punt-return yards before a knee issue cost him two weeks and a foot injury landed him on injured reserve in late December. Entering 2026 he was still fielding punts in Indianapolis, still on the roster bubble behind an established top of the depth chart.
In hindsight the pick is doing what a fifth-round returner is supposed to do and nothing more. The speed translated on kickoffs; the receiver never did, because the offense never needed a 174-pound vertical slot when the tree it asked him to run required winning inside leverage. He is a useful specialist with a real NFL job and no path to scrimmage snaps unless the roster in front of him breaks.
Data note: CFBD box score covers 2021-2023 (2019 was a redshirt year and the shortened 2020 COVID season is not in the CFBD receiving file; those snaps are left unrecorded rather than zero-filled). Punt/kick return production is not part of the WR stat keys: he was first-team All-Pac-12 as a 2022 punt returner with two return touchdowns.