NFL Draft
2/23/25
3 min read
Kaden Prather 2025 NFL Draft: Scouting Report For Maryland Terrapins WR
Height: 6030 (verified)
Weight: 208lbs (verified)
Year: Senior
Pro Comparison: Tyrie Cleveland
Scouting Overview
Maryland Terrapins wide receiver Kaden Prather projects as a developmental X-receiver at the NFL level. His targets in the Maryland offense were often manufactured looks on mesh, slot screens, or go balls vs. a high post safety.
However, he illustrates instances of winning in isolation with backside in-breakers and out routes against soft coverage. Prather offers plucky, confident hands to extend for the football and some notable body control for a bigger-bodied receiver. He’s still working on maximizing the physicality his frame offers him and has a lot of growth opportunities in the margins at the position.
2025 NFL Combine Results
TBD
Positives
- Has promising fluidity throughout his frame to flip himself back open to the football as a pass catcher
- Offers great length and dramatically cut down on his drops in 2024
- Has the physicality to run through contact and stack defenders vertically
Negatives
- Lacks appeal with alignment versatility to play in the slot and win with separation quickness
- Underwhelming consistency as a run blocker despite an ideal frame for winning on the edges of the core
- Modest route tree that was heavily dependent on shallow crosses and low-percentage targets downfield
Background
Prather is from Montgomery Village, MD, and played high school football for Northwest HS. There, he was a 4-star recruit as a wide receiver who initially committed to and enrolled at West Virginia. Prather played two seasons with the Mountaineers and played 20 games with the program. He struggled to find his footing as a contributor and averaged less than 10 yards per reception in 2022 as a true sophomore.
Prather entered the transfer portal as a 4-star transfer in 2023 after his sophomore season and enrolled at Maryland for his new destination. He played in 13 games with 10 starts as a junior, averaging 15.9 yards per reception across 42 catches. He returned for his senior season in 2024 and started all 12 games for the Terrapins and set career marks for receptions and yards.
Prather finished his college career with an accepted invitation to the 2025 East-West Shrine Bowl.
Tale Of The Tape
Prather is a large-bodied pass catcher who has yet to fully live up to his reputation as a high school recruit and a transfer portal candidate. He has obvious and apparent physical gifts with good body control, long strides, and good overall physicality to play on the perimeter. Still, putting everything together is a work in progress as he makes his leap to the NFL level.
Growth is needed in his release package and route tree, in addition to added precision. He’s overwhelmingly been a vertical plane player with more than one-third of his total routes on the season coming in the form of posts and go’s. Another 15 percent were in-breakers as digs and crossers, plus nearly 20 percent hitches. In total, that’s more than 70 percent of his usage with basic routes.
Prather’s stature, physicality, and long strides don’t make him an appealing option to play inside, which the Terps avoided on their own regardless. He’s logged less than 10 percent of his career snaps across his four years in the slot, and he projects much more favorably into a perimeter role.
He lacks the initial explosiveness necessary to serve as a traditional Z-receiver who lifts coverage and creates spacing for the field but does have the size, physicality, and potential in the middle of the field to play in isolation.
His route running must be significantly improved to seize space and create separation on the perimeter against NFL cornerbacks. Prather was too frequently stuck on bodies and unable to cross the face of catch coverage, which looked to disrupt his timing. Maryland used mesh to run him free underneath a bunch of traffic in an effort to rub him clear and create run-after-catch opportunities working away from defenders.
That said, he does not showcase much short-area agility or wiggle to force missed tackles. He’s a generally uncreative runner with the ball who looks to bowl over defenders and punish them head-up.
Despite his potential and presence down the field, Prather caught less than one-quarter of his 20+ air-yard targets downfield in 2024. Expanding to include his seasons at Maryland, his successful target rate rises to one-third of targets (15 receptions on 45 targets). Some of this is explained by the quarterback play, but it also underscores some of his athletic troubles in consistently creating separation.
Prather has the power and physicality to bully press coverage. It still feels like he’s learning how to optimize it. Additionally, he has ample potential to create more of an impact in the run game but generally has not played to his size as a perimeter blocker. He has the natural strength to latch and wall off but with added intensity here, he can quickly dispose of defenders and be a true asset in this regard.
Prather wins by catching the football through congested areas and using supreme body control. Some of his contortions to the football in the air are just outstanding.
He did have to work overtime at times to catch throws on the fringes of his catch radius. A player of this stature should not be this smooth. That’s the selling point and what will keep Prather as an intriguing developmental addition — he has the inherent ability to track the football and adjust for catches.
Ideal Scheme Fit, Role
Prather should be regarded as a developmental X-receiver in the NFL. Thanks to his long strides on the vertical plane, he has plus size and sufficient long speed.
He’d be best served playing in an offense as a potential long-term role player if he can become more refined with his route releases and breaks while also improving his resume as a run blocker to maximize his physicality.
Grade: 69.00/100.00, Sixth Round Value
Big Board Rank: TBD
Position Rank: TBD
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