Jaguars’ Wide Receiver Chris Conley Featured on PFF’s All-Combine Team of Last Decade
In the leadup to next week's NFL Scouting Combine, past combine performances are a major focus. How players who have previously put up impressive workout numbers ended up projecting to the NFL can be telling for the newest crop each year, and this year is no exception.
Before the on-field workouts begin next Thursday, it is a worthwhile exercise to examine how some current Jaguars did when it came to athletic testing at Lucas Oil Stadium as they prepared to enter the draft. One such player who impressed in Indianapolis was wide receiver Chris Conley, who was an athletic specimen coming out of the University of Georgia.
Conley's performance was so impressive that he was recently named to Pro Football Focus' All-Combine Team of the 2010s, an impressive honor considering some of the elite wide receiver prospects who have entered the draft in the last 10 years.
"Guys like John Ross and Marquise Goodwin may have stolen the show with their 40s, but they offered little else. Conley and Boykin were the total package across the board with size, speed, explosiveness and agility. On the NFL field, though, we've not quite seen that show up," PFF wrote.
Conley's workout numbers were nothing short of elite, with the 6-foot-3, 205-pound wide receiver demonstrating top-tier speed and explosion for his size. Conley turned in the following performance:
- 40-yard dash: 4.35.
- Bench Press: 18 reps.
- Three-Cone: 7.06.
- Vertical Jump: 45"
- Broad Jump: 11'-7"
- 20-yard shuttle: 4.3.
- 60-yard shuttle: 11.65.
Conley's workouts in Indianapolis were so impressive that they propelled him to becoming a third-round draft selection (76th overall) by the Kansas City Chiefs in 2015. Conley would go on to play for the Chiefs for four seasons, with his speed becoming a major facet in his time as a role player.
Conley signed with the Jaguars as an unrestricted free agent in 2019 and had the best statistical year of his career. He set a career-high for receptions (47), receiving yards (775) and receiving average (16.5) in his first season in Jacksonville while appearing in all 16 games and tying a career-high in touchdown catches with five.
Yesterday, the Jaguars exercised a team option to keep Conley under contract through 2020, bringing the veteran wideout and combine hero back for the 2020 season.
With the Jaguars still needing wide receiver depth, perhaps they could nab another top combine performer to pair with Conley, as well as with another combine alum in DJ Chark, who ran the second-fastest 40-yard dash out of all players in the 2018 combine with a 4.34 time.
