Both of these guys are going to be good, maybe even stars in the NFL. Lets look at the talent comparison between the two: Hands/Catch - Smith Smith has excellent hands, which are soft yet like glue. He could make any QB look good. Can catch from all angles and makes the hard catches look as easy as routine catches. Also has decent fight for contested catches. Chase is good, especially at contested catches, but his hands are not at Smiths level. Route Running- Smith BY a long shot. Chase can dominate deeper routes and has a decent double move but anything under 20 yards and he struggles to separate. Smith dominates the entire route tree. Everything! He can run any route clean and crisp and separate against anyone, at any depth. Corners are very comfortable putting their hands on Chase. They wont do it to Smith for fear of getting burned. Its really a cant stop - hope to contain situation. Smith wins this by a wide margin. Off the Line, and getting separation - Smith Smith has an impressive arsenal of moves to get off the line clean. DBs will be taking a chance trying to bump him. Smith's separation is the same grade as route running. Smith cant really be consistently covered one on one. Chase can be covered short fairly easily and can be bumped at the LOS easily. Chase shines against the lesser DBs but struggles with separation against the good ones. Especially on shorter routes. Smith wins separation not only against Chase, but against every college WR last season. Height\Reach - Smith Pretty straight forward. Physicality- Chase Chase is a heavier and more physical player. A little better blocker and excellent at high pointing contested catches. Can fight for extra yards much better then Smith as well. Speed- Smith Smith is a little faster and more importantly a lot quicker. This is a player with enough quickness to get open in seconds and still have the raw speed to eat up tons of YAC. Every catch can be a potential big play with him. Chase is more of a bomb or break tackle guy. Chase does have good speed though. Work ethic- Smith Smith has built his reputation on working hard. He has overcome many obstacles, including his frame, to become the best WR in college football. He works hard because all he cares about is winning. He practices like a champion and it shows on the field. Chase just took the season off and his work ethic seems pretty in line with the average player. He will rely on natural talent, not continually try to hone it. Character/Leadership/Locker Room - Smith This one cannot be understated. Smith is a leader who leads by example. Puts his head down and works hard, doesn't talk smack, doesn't go in for over the top celebrations, and lets his play do his talking. He is not a diva and expects the rest of his team to work hard. When he wins he says seeing his team mates and fans happy is the best part. He approaches the game like a champion and a team player. You want this kid in your locker room. He is a massive building block. Chase is still young so his leadership is up in the air. However, before their game Chase talked smack about Parnell Motley and every time Motley covered him that game he shut him down. The only times Chase caught balls that game was against the other corners. It concerns me when a player talks and then cant back it up. Motley is good, but probably not NFL great. In the Orange Bowl Smith handed Motley his jock, all-game-long. When we compare their last season, when they matched up against great CBs, the difference started to stand out. First thing is how they fared against the better CBs. During his breakout sophmore year Chase was consistently handled in game by Igbnoghene, Motley, Surtain Jr., and CJ Henderson. He did have some great games/plays against other corners (exceptional games), and success against the better teams #2. But it was always the lesser corners in the SEC that Chase shined against. Top SEC corners were able to largely shut him down. That is my concern. No corners shut Smith down in 2020 - ever. He has no list here. CONCLUSION As you can see Smith wins all comparisons except one. Many by a large margin. Everything you have just read about Smith is the same thing historians write about Jerry Rice. Its almost like he is Rice version 2 - with a little bit of Randy Moss rolled in. Something else other analysts have pointed out, which seems to be true. When DBs line up on Smith you can see fear in their eyes. A look of concern, like they are in the soup. You don't see that when they line up from Chase. There is not an impending dread that Chase is going to burn them. Smith strikes fear into DBs. Smith became the first WR to win the Heisman in 29 years, and only the 4th WR to win it all time. The reason for this goes beyond the numbers. He was on a team that saw its other top WRs go down which made keying on Smith easy. But he still burned everyone. He just couldn't be stopped at that level. Sure Bama had a great run game and sometimes that was their game plan, but Smith was still always open when needed. He helped win two championships in 4 years so he knows what it takes for a team to succeed. And he is an ultimate team player - maybe even more then Rice was. Its also important tot note Smith plays the best when the pressure is on. He is a clutch player - like all champions are. Big third downs, last minute TDs, etc. When you need a clutch play he will deliver. If we get this man on our team we get a potential HOF talent. Sure its way to early to say that but there is no question he improves our offense immensely from year one. Having Smith with Crowder and Mims would be deadly. He would take the heat off of both of them and our passing game would bust open in a big way. We'd always have someone open. Chase will also probably become a star if he works hard. But he is more like a better version of Mims, and we already have a Mims. We don't have a Rice/Harrison, uncoverable guy. But then - who does? There is no wonder people consider he might be worth the #2 pick. Whoever gets him has dramatically improved their offense. Smith will likely account for 2-3 extra wins a season for the team that drafts him. He is that good.
Isn't Chase taller and bigger (weight) than Smith ? I just wonder how Smith will hold up at 170 pounds playing against guys 2x as strong as most of the players he's seen before at Alabama.
Idk but Jefferson from LSU just had 1100 yards as a rookie and Chase was the better player that year.
The biggest issue with Chase is how will he play in 2021 after sitting out 2020. I don't believe he was a product of Burrow.
Smith has a longer reach and Chase is heavier. From what I've seen Smith is too dangerous to get physical with because of quick feet. He is too quick to bump and to fast to hold without drawing a flag. The questions about Smiths weight are just going to continue to drive him to work harder then everyone else. Great players use that stuff. The ceiling for Smith is easily Jerry Rice. He is a little lighter then Rice but also a little quicker. He checks all of the boxes. I'd say the ceiling for Chase is Michael Irvin. But he checks fewer of the boxes to reach that.
Chase is great. But...after looking at the tape, in Chase's big year he did most of his damage against #2's. A good #1 could and did shut him down a few times. He is still an explosive player and if we got him I'd be happy. But Smith has the promise of someone special. Lets put it this way. If the dolphins take Smith at 3 we don't currently have anyone that could cover him, and that includes bringing in Richard Sherman. Smith has the potential to change fortunes somewhere.
