Which undrafted free agents could make an impact in the 2023 NFL season?

#5. Jalen Moreno-Cropper, WR, Dallas Cowboys (Fresno State)

Fresno State wide receiver Jalen Moreno-Cropper

I just mentioned the crazy amount of pass-catchers selected throughout seven rounds. One of my personal favorites and somebody who didn’t get a call until the final names were announced is this kid from Fresno State and the Cowboys get a second mention here.

Moreno-Cropper was a top-500 overall recruit, who put up nearly 1,100 scrimmage yards and eight touchdowns as more of a gadget player in his first two seasons with the Bulldogs. He recorded 2,080 yards and 18 touchdowns from scrimmage over his latter two years there, improving from second- to first-team All-Mountain West in 2022.

What really drew me towards Moreno-Cropper were his advanced skills to incorporate different tempo and footwork, along with manipulating defenders with his body language. He’s so jittery off the line and rarely allows guys to impede his release, frequently utilizing split releases, to give himself a two-way go and then reducing that shoulder, to avoid getting hung up with contact.

He displays the awareness to float towards and sit or slow down in open space versus zone coverage. You see great hand-eye coordination when he ball is put right on him out of the break and tremendous body when adjusting to targets down the field.

Once the ball is in his hands, Moreno-Cropper recognizes defenders around him, instantly gets upfield with excellent awareness for where the first-down marker, but also has that slipperiness to make people miss in the open field.

The reason I am still surprised that he went undrafted (considering being 5’11” and 175 pounds is certainly not an outlier in this class) is that he actually ran a 4.4 flat at the combine and has been an effective vertical receiver.

Now, he doesn’t have much physicality to his game, whether it’s playing through contact or taking care of blocking assignments, combining his lack of height with arms barely cracking 30 inches in length. That ability to win at the catch-point is something he certainly needs to clean up is ball-security, as he had seven career fumbles across 270 total touches.

With that out of the way, I think this can still be a productive NFL receiver as part of a rotation. With the trade for Brandin Cooks, to join Ceedee Lamb and Michael Gallup, I’m obviously not expecting Moreno-Cropper to crack the starting three in 11 personnel sets.

If you look at the roster beyond that, you have return specialist KaVontae Turpin, who only touched the ball four times on offense, along with third-rounder Jalen Tolbert from last year and 2021 fifth-rounder Simi Fehoko, who despite injury problems at the position, combined for only 125 offensive snaps and five receptions this past season.

To me, while I did like Tolbert, even if they do show interest in getting him onto the field, he’s more of an outside option. I could easily see Moreno-Cropper see extended workload in the slot as a de-facto WR4, when they don’t have one of that starting three and they move Ceedee to the outside or that guy gets banged up at some point.