Decamerion
Richardson.
Decamerion
Richardson.
Mississippi St.· 6'2"· 188 lb· 4.34s 40
"Five college seasons, zero interceptions, and a 4.34 forty at 6-2 — Las Vegas paid a fourth-round pick for the body and bet the ball skills could be coached in later."Pre-draft read
Richardson was Mississippi State's boundary corner, a 6-2 press-and-trail cover man who lived on the outside third and almost never moved inside. The primary trait is speed: a 4.34 forty that shows up as a real recovery gear, letting him ride vertical routes step for step and erase a bad first move that would sink most corners.
The secondary trait is tackling volume. He led SEC cornerbacks in tackles two years running because he plays the run honestly and comes off blocks to finish. What he never added was the ball. He is late to turn and locate, his transitions out of breaks are leggy, and he finished five college seasons without a single interception. Elite tools, unfinished corner.
A zone-based defense — Cover 3 and quarters — that keeps him on the boundary with eyes on the quarterback and asks him to close on throws in front rather than mirror routes.
Year 1: fourth or fifth corner and special-teams contributor while the transitions and ball skills get coached. Ceiling: a Cover 3 boundary starter who takes away the vertical and tackles at a high volume on the perimeter.
Man-heavy defenses that ask him to mirror and match out of breaks — the leggy transitions and the inability to locate the ball late make him a penalty and completion machine in trail technique.
His floor is special teams; the speed and length make him a genuine gunner even if the coverage never arrives.
NFL Draft Film Ep 762: Decamerion Richardson / CB / Mississippi State / Full Highlights
The full cut-up: the recovery speed on verticals and the tackling volume that led SEC corners.
Decamerion Richardson (Mississippi State CB) vs LSU 2023
Every snap against LSU's NFL receivers — the honest test of the transitions and the late head-turn.
Raiders Select CB Decamerion Richardson | Highlights | 2024 NFL Draft
The draft-night package Las Vegas put out after taking him at 112.
He is the archetype teams keep chasing: a long, 6-2 boundary corner who runs 4.34 and looks the part getting off the bus. Mississippi State has a real pipeline here — Cam Dantzler, Martin Emerson, Emmanuel Forbes all went in the first three rounds — and Richardson was next in line on measurables alone.
The production told a different story. He became a full-time starter as a junior and led all SEC corners in tackles in both 2022 and 2023, which speaks to toughness and durability but also to a lot of completions being made in front of him. He broke up seven passes as a senior, his career high, and never intercepted a pass in five seasons. The tape matched: he is leggy in transition, plays without anticipation, and takes too long to find the ball even when he is in position. The speed and the length were the whole case, and Lance Zierlein flagged him as a player with a narrow scheme fit.
The board called it a Day 3 developmental swing — a fourth-round grade, with mocks putting him in the 130s. Las Vegas took him at 112 as a zone-scheme project, betting that Patrick Graham could coach the ball skills into a body that already had everything else.
- 01
Elite long speed
a 4.34 forty at 6-2 gives him a genuine recovery gear, and he can carry vertical routes with NFL receivers without needing a head start.
- 02
Length on the boundary
32 3/8-inch arms let him contest at the catch point and press effectively even when his footwork at the line is imperfect.
- 03
Willing run defender
he led SEC cornerbacks in tackles in back-to-back seasons, comes off blocks and finishes plays rather than waiting for the safety.
- 04
Zone vision
his best coverage reps came with eyes on the quarterback, reading route concepts in front of him and driving on the throw.
- 05
Durability and availability
38 games across three heavy-workload seasons with no missed time, and 25 straight starts to close his career.
- 01
No ball production
zero interceptions in his college career and only 10 pass breakups, because he is consistently late to turn and locate the throw.
- 02
Leggy transitions
long strider who is slow to flip and change direction in space, which quick, sudden receivers exploit on breaking routes.
- 03
Lack of anticipation
he reacts to routes rather than reading them, so he is chasing from a step behind instead of arriving with the ball.
- 04
Thin frame
188 pounds at 6-2 means bigger receivers can move him at the top of the route and win through contact on the boundary.
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
- 4.34sp50
- Vertical
- 35inp50
- Broad jump
- 128inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mississippi State | 13 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2022 | Mississippi State | 13 | 78 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 2023 | Mississippi State | 12 | 79 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| Career | — | 38 | 171 | 1 | 0 | 10 | 0 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
A traits corner who bounces between fourth-corner duty and special teams, valuable on a roster but never the answer on the boundary.
The realistic best case: a long, fast Day 3 corner who takes several years to click and eventually becomes a full-time zone starter.
If the ball skills never arrive, a late-round corner who never earns a defensive role and is out of the league inside a few seasons.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Las Vegas redshirted him in practice more than on the field. He did not take a defensive snap until Week 7 of 2024, then played 11 games, finishing with 46 tackles, three pass breakups and a 66.7 percent completion rate allowed on 407 yards when targeted. Year 2 went the other way. He impressed in the 2025 camp — Patrick Graham praised the work ethic, and he rotated with Eric Stokes and Darien Porter for starting reps — but the job went elsewhere and he finished the season with just 11 tackles as a special-teamer. In 2026 he re-emerged: under Pete Carroll's staff he opened camp ahead of rookie Jermod McCoy on the initial depth chart as the Raiders' fourth corner, taking occasional first-team run.
In hindsight this is exactly the pick the board described. Everything the scouting reports flagged has held: the speed is real, the length is real, and the ball skills never arrived — he still has no NFL interception through two seasons. Las Vegas paid a fourth-rounder for the traits and got a developmental corner who is still in the building three years later without a defined role. Not a wasted pick, but not the Sherman-body payoff either.