Meet Jerry Jeudy: Verb, Highlight Reel, Draft’s Most Unique Talent
Editor's Note: This feature on Alabama receiver Jerry Jeudy, a top prospect in this month's NFL Draft, was written by Alex Prewitt for SI.com's Daily Cover feature. CLICK HERE for the full story.
Back home, his name has become a verb. On fields throughout South Florida’s Broward County, aspiring players of every age have taken to stutter-stepping, dead-legging, spinning, juking and jitterbugging as they imitate their favorite wide receiver. Where earlier generations hollered “You got Mossed!” while embarrassing opposing defensive backs, kids today are all trying to Jeudy.
Jevon Glenn sees the craze up close. As a youth football fixture and coach at Deerfield Beach High, where Jerry Jeudy dropped jaws and broke ankles before heading to Alabama in 2017, Glenn is constantly issuing admonishments for dancing in place during practice instead of running drills. Hey, we don’t have time for you to sit there and be Jeudying. Even so, Glenn admits, the arrival of Jeudy (the verb) has made a positive impact. Who better to learn from than Jeudy (the human) about the art of coming off the line of scrimmage?
“From little league all the way up to my seniors,” Glenn says, “when they work on their releases, they call it Jeudying. He’s the release king.”
Video: Alabama's Jerry Jeudy
Even in a loaded position group that threatens the record for first-round receivers in an NFL draft (six), the 6' 1", 192-pound Jeudy stands alone for his ability to shed coverage—selling fakes better than a back-alley watch dealer, operating with a PhD-level command of the route tree. As expected, replicating this isn’t easy for teens. Adds Glenn, “Most of them fall after they get done Jeudying.”
Countless DBs can relate. Viral footage of their demise is readily available. In one video from a 2016 Florida Gators recruiting camp (with more than 4,200 Twitter likes to date), Jeudy leaves a cornerback splayed facedown with a nasty comeback-and-go double move. Another, filmed at a group workout with Antonio Brown last summer in Ft. Lauderdale, opens with Jeudy planting and stopping so abruptly on a 10-yard curl that his defender screeches another three yards downfield before a) realizing what has happened, b) attempting to recover and c) finally falling over. It has almost one million views.
“When he gets separation,” says quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, a projected top-15 pick like Jeudy after both left Alabama following their junior seasons, “if it’s a timing route, I see Jerry break his man off so bad and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to punt the ball to you because you’re so wide open.’”
As Jeudy terrorized SEC secondaries—winning the Biletnikoff Award in 2018, finishing second in program history to Amari Cooper with 26 touchdown catches and becoming only the second Crimson Tide wideout with consecutive 1,000-yard seasons (D.J. Hall, 2006 and ’07)—his legions of admirers swelled far beyond kids. Terrell Owens hit him up for a workout when he visited Tuscaloosa before Jeudy’s sophomore year; they ran routes for more than an hour. After a Bama victory last season Odell Beckham Jr. called to congratulate him on FaceTime.
Then there are his DMs, filled with household handles—Davante Adams, Keenan Allen and Stefon Diggs to name-drop several—replying to clips of his jukes with breathless, emoji-laced praise:
READ MORE FROM ALEX PREWITT'S FEATURE IN SI.COM'S DAILY COVER
