Danny Scudero

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Twopointtry

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Jun 18, 2026
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Ferragamo15
Two Comparisons

In 2016, the Rams signed an UDFA receiver from Colorado named Nelson Spruce. He was a hometown kid from Thousand Oaks, CA. Spruce wasn't fast and he had very short arms, but in college he put up big receiving stats. Spruce shattered the Colorado career receiving records for both yards and catches. He had nearly 1,200 yards his JR season and followed it up with another 1,000 season as a SR.

As a rookie, Spruce became a fan favorite during training camp and preseason. He even made the opening day roster. After getting waived by the Rams the following year, he bounced around on the PS of a few other teams, then went on to be a good player in the AAF and XFL. Spruce never appeared in a single NFL regular season game.

Danny Scudero is a very small slot WR who will be playing for Spruce's former college team this season. My pro player comparison for Scudero is a WR for the Detroit Lions who much like Spruce has a cult following among Lions fans, despite essentially being a practice squad level WR for his entire NFL career. He wasn't even an UDFA for the Lions, he was a try-out player the Lions signed after he impressed them at a rookie minicamp.

Here is a second comparison regarding Scudero. Which of the following WRs had the most catches and receiving yards in 2025: Scudero, Wyattt Young, Jeremiah Smith or Makai Lemon?

Simple, the answer has to be Scudero. He led all of FBS football in receiving yards. Scudero played in fewer games than Young and Smith. If Scudero had played as many games as Young, he probably would have had 1,500 receiving yards for the season.
 
Part 1: Background

Name, School: Danny Scudero. Redshirt Junior. Colorado for 2026, San Jose State in 2025, Sacramento State 2023 and 2024.

Size, estimated speed: Listed 5'9'' tall, 174 pounds. Draftscout 5'8 5/8'' tall, 174 pounds, 4.52 seconds in 40. [He's basically Drake Stoops.] During offseason workouts for Colorado, Scudero ran 4.51 seconds in the 40. [Nelson Spruce ran 4.69 seconds at the Combine, then 4.58 seconds at his Pro Day.]

Team captain in HS. Has 2 sisters. Also played defense and returned kickoffs in HS.

Scudero was mostly a baseball player growing up and didn't start playing football until his final couple of years in HS. He was listed as 5'10'' tall and 150 pounds in HS. His only good statistical season in HS was his SR year when he had almost 1,000 receiving yards. Sacramento State was his only scholarship offer. He considered himself lucky just to get that offer and immediately jumped at the opportunity, accepting right away.

San Jose State's OC is Craig Stutzmann, who is known for an innovative offensive system called the "Spread and Shred" scheme. Stutzmann played WR for Hawaii, so the backbone is a June Jones run-and-shoot offense but Stutzmann has fused it with Art Briles style spread and Chip Kelly RPO concepts. Importantly for Scudero, the slot WR is a featured target in the scheme and can run option routes.

At Colorado, Scudero will be playing for another well known innovative OC, Brennan Marion, famous for his "GoGo" scheme, that he's used at schools such as Howard and UNLV. Marion has blended spread and option concepts, using creative formations that look like they're pulled out of old veer days or pee-wee football.

Undisclosed injury in the middle of 2025 season. Also, in one of the games I watched, Scudero appeared to suffer a concussion. A defender was running towards Scudero and tried to punch the football out to cause a fumble. His fist missed the ball and clocked Scudero full force in the side of the head. Scudero "fumbled" the ball but I don't understand why it wasn't a personal foul. Is that what we're doing now, you're allowed to just punch a guy in the face when making a tackle?

2023 (Redshirted at Sac St) Limited special teams playing time, made 2 tackles and returned kickoffs.
2024 (Sac St, 11 games, 4 starts): 53-667-5
2025 (SJSU, 12 starts): 88-1,297-10, 108.1 yards per game, 2 fumbles.

3 career rushing attempts for 46 yards.

NFLMDD 833
Draftscout Day 3
PFSN simulator 346
Drafttek not ranked among 450 players on board
Sam Teets not ranked on board or listed as player to study

He's barely a tiny blip on the draft radar. On most draft boards, it is like he doesn't even exist.
 
Part 2: Strengths

Scudero isn't a great draft prospect. Let's make that clear right off the bat. He has very little chance of getting drafted. Still, know one of the things I like most about this player? He has the best interview of any of the players I've profiled so far for next year's draft. He has a very positive "can do" attitude. He's grateful, humble, religious, intelligent, gives polished and thoughtful answers to questions, compliments other people, just very professional. Deion Sanders and the other CU coaches rave about his professional attitude, work ethic and what a pleasure it is to coach him. Scudero is the type of player that if you put him on your PS, he might get voted "scout team player of the year" at the end of the season, just like Kurt Warner was his first year with the Rams. Scudero has the right personality and intangibles to be one of the nobodies on the squad who understands that he likely won't get in a single game the entire season and that his primary responsibility is to help the team practice so that the other players will be ready to play in the game.

Scudero was an outfielder when he played baseball. I immediately guessed this when I was watching his games, because his ball tracking on deep passes and backshoulder throws is ridiculously good. Like an outfielder adjusting to a fly ball, Scudero has an uncanny knack for looking over his shoulder, adjusting to the flight of the football, then getting his body and hands catch ready. Calm hands bringing in deep throws.

Has an odd receiving profile, because while his tiny size makes you think of a possession slot WR, he's really more of a deep bomb WR. Many slots are quicker than fast but Scudero has surprising vertical ability. If you put him in an NFL game, none of the defenders are going to know who he is and are going to assume that he's going to run short routes like curls and slants, assuming that he's just like any other tiny slot WR. He might be able to ambush them with double moves and get over the top just with sheer surprise when they underestimate his deep speed.

SJSU isn't a very good team. Their QB had just an okay arm and wasn't particularly accurate. The QB repeatedly missed Scudero on potential chunk plays. Critical for the stat sheet, the QB had several terrible throws on plays where Scudero was wide open on deep bombs, robbing the WR of a ton of receiving yardage. The amazing thing about his 2025 stats is that even though he led the country in yardage, he would have piled up even more yards if he had played with a better QB. In 2020, the Rams signed an UDFA QB from SJSU named Josh Love. All we have to do is swap out QBs and put Love back on his old college team to partner with Scudero in 2025 and the stats would have been bonkers crazy. Love throwing to Scudero would have resulted in Cooper Kupp at Eastern Washington stats.

While I didn't notice him on any ST units in 2025, he has some ST experience from earlier in his career and in HS, perhaps most importantly he has returned kickoffs before and he has made ST tackles.

Twitchy. Quick and nimble typewriter feet. Changes speed inside the route and can accelerate to generate separation. When he wants to jet upfield on intermediate or deep routes, he has good route tempo coming off the line without wasted movement. Decent pivot route. Freezes some CBs at the top of the route with jukes. Sudden to win inside on slant route. Attacked inside toes of CB and slipped hip to get open deep.

Had almost zero blocking duties in their scheme but he does give sufficient effort when he did block. No fear going over middle, not afraid of contact.

Good body control and balance, giving him some ability to gain YAC by spinning out of weak tackles.

Texas has a 4-star freshman CB and Scudero took it to him all game long, repeatedly burned him. If you didn't know their names, you wouldn't know which of them was the 4-star guy and which one was the zero star recruit.

Very similar to Daniel Braverman, a 2016 7th round pick by the Chicago Bears out of Western Michigan. Braverman was a PS guy for a couple years and didn't make a single catch in the NFL, but at least he did get drafted.
 
Part 3: Weaknesses

Average hands. Dropped a pass right in his chest. Body catches the ball. Appears to have very small hands. Poor at grabbing high passes and at digging out low passes. Has a tiny effective catch radius, making him a difficult target for the QB to hit at all 3 levels of the field.

Doesn't attack the catch point to help the QB and to protect it from CBs.

Much too small. He's short with a small frame. Limited body mass and muscle. Has short and stubby legs. No elite size or athletic traits. Is neither super-fast nor super agile.

A system WR. Much of his statistical production is just a product of his team's scheme. Also the fact that he's relatively fast for the lower level of competition he faced, allowing him to win on downfield throws. He was a high volume target but with poor efficiency, whether due to QB missing throws or the WR not coming up with catches that many other WRs would have caught. SJSU rarely ran the ball with the RBs, it was a pass happy offense.

Played in a gimmicky offense with very wide WR splits that artificially created acres of space to exploit and huge cushions by the DBs. Given free releases off the LOS.

Poor play strength if jammed at the top of the route. Has very little ability to win contested catches.

Not skilled at releases. Much too slow with release fakes, tries overly complicated hesitation moves.

Below average route runner. Only an average feel for route leverage. Not precise with the angles of his breaks.

No position versatility, can only play slot WR.

Has almost zero value as a blocker.

Limited ST value due to his small size.

Not elusive with ball in his hands. Limited short area explosiveness and lateral jump cut range.

Unlikely to be in the 2027 draft. The logical thing for him to do is to use all of his eligibility and remain in college, so my bet is he'll be in the 2028 draft class. This could change if he has a good 2026 season at CU that pushes him high enough on the board to get drafted.
 
Part 4: Draft Grade and Pro Comp

UDFA grade. Tom Kennedy (2019 rookie minicamp try-out player, Detroit Lions, Bryant).

Kennedy was primarily a lacrosse player in college before returning to football towards the end of his college career. He had 888 yards receiving as a SR, then played another year as a graduate student but suffered a knee injury, so he only had 410 yards his final year at Bryant, a FCS school. He was listed at 190 pounds in college.

Kennedy is still with the Lions. He's mostly been a PS guy but has been elevated to the regular roster multiple times, typically as an injury replacement. He didn't have a catch in an NFL regular season game until his 3rd NFL season, at the age of 25. For his career, he has 18 catches for 231 yards and zero TDs. He's also returned kickoffs, mostly in the 2025 season. The most playing time he had on offense came in the 2022 season.

While Kennedy hasn't had much of a career, many Lions fans love him. Also, his career production is basically better than that of JJ Arcega-Whiteside, a 2nd round pick from the same draft class. Detroit arguably has gotten more from Kennedy than Arizona got from the 2nd round pick they used that year on Andy Isabella. Kennedy has more production than the combined career totals of 3 WRs taken in the 3rd to 4th round in that draft. The draft doesn't truly end when the 7th round is over. There is value to be mined among all the players who didn't get picked, even some of those who on paper look like camp fodder and don't have any shot at making the roster.

Danny Scudero is a late bloomer who is relatively inexperienced. The 2026 season will be the first time he's played at a power conference level. I think that his technique can be refined with coaching and more playing time. He'll always be too small to meet minimum NFL requirements, but I do think he has enough potential to compete for a PS spot.
 
Watched him quite a bit last year, I have ties to SJSU. The "Spread & Shred" offense is fun to watch. Walker Eget the starting QB played locally and was pretty solid but a little inconsistent. Danny the Scud-missle Scudero was super fun to watch, had some drops and is undersized but has a knack for getting open.

i don't see his game translating well to the NFL but I do like how hard he plays every down.

The SJSU system just produces eye popping receiver numbers where the previous year Nick Nash won the trpple crown leading the country in yards, receptions and TD's during the regular season and @6'3" he was an infinently better prospect than Danny but only managed to make the Falcons practice squad as a UDFA.

Nice write up
@Twopointtry
 
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rdlkgliders said:
i don't see his game translating well to the NFL but I do like how hard he plays every down.
Click to expand...
Shane Hallam is a well known draft expert. He recently did a 7 round mock draft. Some of his picks were very surprising. For example, he has Wyatt Young as only a 6th round pick. Many experts have Young as a 1st to 2nd round prospect.

In Hallam's draft, Danny Scudero is an early 4th round selection. Wow!
 
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Twopointtry said:
Shane Hallam is a well known draft expert. He recently did a 7 round mock draft. Some of his picks were very surprising. For example, he has Wyatt Young as only a 6th round pick. Many experts have Young as a 1st to 2nd round prospect.

In Hallam's draft, Danny Scudero is an early 4th round selection. Wow!
Click to expand...
Interesting and surprising, It all depends on this season at CU I suppose and I won't be surprised if he has good numbers but 4th? We will see
 
rdlkgliders said:
Interesting and surprising, It all depends on this season at CU I suppose and I won't be surprised if he has good numbers but 4th? We will see
Click to expand...
Ryan Switzer was a very good player at UNC and was a 4th round pick in 2017, despite being a similar size as Scudero. So, theoretically possible, though I think that Switzer was a better prospect.

There have been quite a few WRs that I've liked who ended up as 4th round picks but once in the NFL they rarely were used as WRs, they've mostly just been special teams players used as punt returners. So, I think that a key factor in whether Scudero can stay on a roster is he must prove that he can be a punt returner. IE he has to field it cleanly without muffing it, know when to fair catch or let it bounce, read the flight of the ball (his baseball background could help) and show enough elusiveness and burst to make defenders miss and gain yardage and don't fumble when you get tackled. The PR part of the job audition is arguably at least as important as his WR abilities.
 
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