Keeler: Nick Saban on why he thought Broncos’ Jerry Jeudy might be first receiver taken in NFL draft

Honestly? Nick Saban didn’t expect Jerry Jeudy to still be sitting there at No. 15, either.

“I actually thought Jerry might be the first receiver picked in the draft,” the venerated Alabama coach said Thursday in a Zoom interview. “We were happy to see our other guy, (Henry) Ruggs, picked as well. They were both fine players.”

The first wideout selected in the 2020 NFL draft turned out to be Ruggs, Jeudy’s Alabama teammate, who got plucked by the Raiders at No. 12. Tampa Bay and San Francisco went with offensive tackle and defensive tackle at picks 13 and 14, respectively, and the rest is history.

“I tell our players all the time, ‘It’s not about where you get drafted,’” Saban said of Jeudy, the 2018 Biletnikoff Award-winner who was taken by Broncos GM John Elway with the 15th pick of the draft. “’It’s what you do with the opportunity that you get because you got drafted. And that’s what’s going to make you have a great career, so that’s what you need to focus on.’ And I think Jerry will do that.”

Like a lot of pundits, Saban thinks Elway and the Broncos bagged a steal right out of the chute. When he sees Jeudy, he sees a perfect fit for new offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur, an old protégé who worked for Saban as an assistant coach at Michigan State from 1995-97. He sees the second coming, at worst, of Keenan McCardell.

“When (McCardell) was a young player, he had the unique ability to drop his weight and get out of a break,” Saban said of the former Pro Bowl wideout and current Jaguars wide receiver coach, with whom he worked as a member of the Cleveland Browns’ staff in the early ‘90s.

“You win on the route in two areas: You win on the release, and if they’re playing press against you, you win coming out of the break. And the players that have a unique ability to drop the weight, change direction and accelerate out of a break — you know, some of it’s God-given, some of it is learned. But Jerry (has) a unique ability to do that extremely well.”

And do it at top speed. The Crimson Tide coach, whose squads have played in seven of the past 11 national title games, winning five, likened a good receiving corps to a starting five in basketball. And likened Jeudy to Jamal Murray.

“You’ve got a point guard, you got a ‘2’ guard, you got a swing forward, you got a power forward,” Saban explained. “And I think a combination of those kind of guys really makes for a good receiver corps.

“Jerry’s certainly going to be the point guard or the ‘2’ guard, because he can do a lot of things well: Run option routes, be a possession guy. But he can also get on top of you if he needs to.”

Forget hitting the rookie wall. Saban has a hard time picturing Jeudy even scraping the bugger.

“I never saw Jerry (have), I call it a hang-dog (look), you know, and get frustrated and let that affect his performance,” the coach noted. “And some people do that and then they disappear a little bit. I never really saw that in him.

“And you know, (if) he dropped a couple of balls (last fall, he’d) bounce right back and make a big play the next play. Maybe I don’t have the experience of seeing him fail much. But if he failed that much, y’all wouldn’t have picked him.”

Like the man said, it’s what you do with the opportunity. Saban imagines Jeudy taking this one and running with it, full-tilt, all the way to daylight.