Roman
Wilson.
Roman
Wilson.
Michigan· 5'11"· 185 lb· 4.39s 40
"Wilson separates the way sprinters do — in the first three steps — and the entire evaluation comes down to whether a 185-pound slot can stay upright long enough to make that quickness a weekly weapon."Pre-draft read
Wilson is a slot-first receiver who wins before the ball arrives. He releases flat and low, eats cushion in three steps and makes defensive backs open their hips early, then snaps routes off with real deceleration. Michigan ran him from the slot and from reduced splits, and he was at his best on option routes, slants and the deep over.
The secondary trait is vertical speed that actually plays: a 4.39 forty that shows up on seam shots and post-corners, with hands that track the ball over either shoulder. He is a willing crack blocker despite the frame. The signature is red-zone conversion — twelve of his 48 senior catches went for scores, most of them created with tempo changes inside the ten.
Timing-based spread passing game that lives in 11 personnel and asks the slot to win option routes against nickel leverage.
Year 1: full-time slot and designated underneath separator on third down. Ceiling: high-volume WR2 who also threatens the seam.
A condensed, boundary-heavy offense that asks its receivers to win 50-50 balls outside against press-man corners.
He needs a quarterback willing to throw with anticipation on option routes; without that timing his separation window closes.
2024 NFL Draft Highlights: WR Roman Wilson | Michigan Football
Full senior-season reel: option routes, seam shots and red-zone finishes.
Michigan WR Roman Wilson highlights | Big Ten Film Breakdown | NBC Sports
Analyst breakdown of his releases and separation at the top of the stem.
Film Room: Roman Wilson Vs Purdue: All Routes
Every route against Purdue — the cleanest look at his deceleration and tempo changes.
A four-year Michigan receiver from Honolulu who arrived as a track sprinter and left as a national champion, Wilson is a quickness-and-acceleration player rather than a size-and-catch-radius one. At 5-10 and 185 pounds he is a slot in most offenses, and the tape supports it: separation at the top of the stem, easy speed to stack a corner, reliable hands inside the numbers.
His production curve is the argument. Wilson caught 25 passes in each of his sophomore and junior years inside a run-first, quarterback-limited attack, then took the WR1 job in 2023 and turned it into 48 catches for 789 yards and 12 touchdowns on a championship team. The red-zone volume was not an accident — he is a genuine scoring threat in tight space. The flag is durability and volume: nagging injuries cost him snaps in three separate seasons, and 107 career catches is a modest sample for a four-year starter-adjacent player.
Boards had him in the late second to third round, most often as the fourth or fifth receiver off in a deep class. Pittsburgh taking him at 84 was value on a clean role player: a Day 2 slot with speed, toughness and no scheme-fit questions. The bet was that a run-heavy offense could use him as its only true separator underneath.
- 01
Release quickness
Flat, low first step that eats a corner's cushion in three strides and forces early hip flips, which is why he separates against press without much hand fighting.
- 02
Verified vertical speed
A 4.39 forty at 185 pounds shows up on seam shots and post-corners; he stacks defensive backs cleanly rather than needing scheme-created space.
- 03
Red-zone finisher
Twelve touchdowns on 48 senior catches; he changes tempo inside the ten and finds the soft spot in condensed coverage better than most slot prospects in the class.
- 04
Route deceleration
Genuine ability to sink and snap on option routes and out-breakers, giving quarterbacks a consistent underneath answer against zone and man alike.
- 05
Competitive toughness
A willing crack blocker on the perimeter in Michigan's run game and unafraid to work the middle of the field despite a slight frame.
- 01
Slight frame
At 5-10 and 185 pounds with 30 3/8-inch arms, he wins few contested balls outside the numbers and can be rerouted by physical corners on the boundary.
- 02
Durability history
Nagging ankle, hamstring and lower-body issues reduced his role in 2020, 2021 and 2022, a pattern that carried straight into his professional career.
- 03
Limited production sample
107 catches over four seasons in a run-first offense left evaluators projecting rather than confirming what he does on high-volume targets.
- 04
Ball-tracking on the deep boundary
Occasional late hands and body adjustments on back-shoulder throws outside, where his catch radius offers no margin for error.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.39sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 12repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Michigan | 6 | 9 | 122 | 1 |
| 2021 | Michigan | 13 | 25 | 420 | 3 |
| 2022 | Michigan | 12 | 25 | 376 | 4 |
| 2023 | Michigan | 15 | 48 | 789 | 12 |
| Career | — | 46 | 107 | 1707 | 20 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Undersized slot who lives on separation and volume underneath, with scoring value tied to scheme rather than size.
The upside version: same release burst and vertical juice, but with the target volume and yards-after-catch creativity Wilson has not yet shown.
The floor: track speed that never converted into a stable role because of frame, durability and inconsistent target share.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Pittsburgh drafted him to be the underneath separator its offense lacked, and then almost nothing went to plan. Wilson lost essentially his entire rookie season to a high ankle sprain and a follow-on hamstring problem, finishing 2024 with no meaningful production and no rhythm with the quarterback. In 2025 he was healthy but stuck: 12 catches for 166 yards and two touchdowns across a dozen games, much of it in garbage time, and by December he was a healthy scratch with Adam Thielen and Marquez Valdes-Scantling dressing ahead of him. That is a bleak two-year opening for a third-round receiver.
The 2026 camp changed the tone. Under a new staff, Wilson took the overwhelming majority of WR3 reps in three-receiver sets, beat out rookie Germie Bernard for the slot and drew public praise from Aaron Rodgers for a leap in confidence and command of the playbook. He now projects as the Week 1 slot with two established outside targets pulling coverage away. The evaluation was never wrong about the traits — the separation and the speed still show. What the pre-draft process undersold was how completely the injury history would define his first two years, and how much of a third-round receiver's value hinges on being available early.