Hakeem Nicks is the ultimate catch in 2009

Football fans tend to revisit past NFL drafts and assess which teams picked wisely and which ones picked busts (i.e. Ryan Leaf Akili Smith and the Detroit Lions' annual selection).

When people reflect on the 2009 NFL Draft a few years from now UNC's Hakeem Nicks might go down as one of the draft's biggest steals.

Most mock drafts have Nicks as the fourth wide receiver taken — after Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree Missouri's Jeremy Maclin and Florida's Percy Harvin. The experts see Nicks as a late first-round or early second-round selection.

Any team that lands Nicks that late will be shoplifting worse than Winona Ryder.

Nicks runs the 40-yard dash in about 4.4 seconds — not blazing but fast enough. And what he lacks in speed Nicks more than makes up for with his route-running pass-catching and game-changing abilities.

In the open field he's tougher to take down than Wal-Mart and he makes more ridiculous grabs than a sex offender. His teammates say his game-day performances only hint at what they watch every practice.

Both of ESPN's grand poobahs of NFL draft projections Mel Kiper Jr. and Todd McShay like Nicks' prospects. Kiper ranks him as a mid-to-late first-rounder" with McShay projecting Nicks toward the end of the first round.

McShay writes: ""I think Nicks ultimately will emerge as the second- or third-best receiver from the 2009 class.""

Ditto.

Yet many teams seem unsure of Nicks because he reportedly failed the Wonderlic (football's IQ exam). But he's passed all the live game tests he's taken so far.

He further lowered his draft stock by gaining weight since the Combine. With some guys" that's cause for worry but not with Nicks.

Hakeem in Kiper's esteem" ""won't wow you in a workout" but on game day" he makes the tough catches and is the type of player who wants the ball thrown his way in clutch situations.""

In other words" No. 88 does things not represented by Combine stats. But he will become at the very least a solid possession receiver in the NFL for years to come. Pro teams will always want a receiver who delivers on 3rd-and-7 racks up yards after the catch and blocks well down field.

Know what you call a guy with Hakeem Nicks' skill set in the NFL? Employed.

In three years of college football Nicks excelled despite catching passes from Joe Dailey Cam Sexton T.J. Yates and Mike Paulus — none of whom played a full season during Nicks' time here. Yet Nicks led UNC in catches receiving yards and receiving touchdowns each season he played.

In three-fourths of a normal college career Nicks set 14 UNC records including 181 career receptions2580 career receiving yards and 21 career touchdowns. And his numbers drastically improved from year to year.

But Kiper addressed the most important thing about Nicks: He makes plays when it counts.

At UNC Nicks coexisted well with other talented wideouts such as Jesse Holley Brandon Tate and Brooks Foster.

But when his team needed a true No. 1 receiver after Tate succumbed to a season-ending knee injury last year Nicks took over.

Tate went down early against Notre Dame the biggest foe UNC had faced to that point. Nicks never missed a beat — he made nine catches for 141 yards and led his team to one of its greatest home wins in years.

Nicks averaged 101 receiving yards and one touchdown per game in that game and the seven that followed.

That stretch included an eight-reception 217-yard three-touchdown performance against West Virginia in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on the final day of Nicks' UNC career — the reason he's as high as he is on draft boards.

Imagine: Had he not done that he could've gone in the late second third or even fourth round of the 2009 NFL Draft.

Then he'd really be one helluva catch.



Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose@email.unc.edu.