Adonai Mitchell fell through the first round of the draft, then almost through the second. He fell to a team that trusted him beyond any other.
“Yeah, I had my first words out of my mouth,” Colts’ general manager Chris Ballard said to Texas wide receiver Adonai Mitchell when the Colts had the 52nd pick in the 2024 draft. “I said, ‘You tired of sitting around?’ The passion came out pretty clearly on the phone.”
It was apparent that Mitchell wasn’t supposed be drafted here. Pundits and experts alike had AD (Adonai) going much earlier, first round like his Texas receiver counterpart Xavier Worthy. On the TV broadcast, no hugs, no handshakes, no jubilation lit up the screen. If the philosophy of stoicism was seen in a still image, you could find it at the Mitchell household.
“I’m just kind of pissed,” Mitchell said via video conference. “I don’t really know what other way to call it.”
Mitchell fell hard in the draft, tumbling down boards on a level not seen usually for top skill-player talent outside of being entangled with the law. AD had been one of the highest ranked wide receivers in this year’s NFL Draft. His route running ability at Georgia and Texas surpassed his competition and was a major piece of the Longhorns’ playoff-run team this past year. He caught 55 passes for 845 yards through 14 games– averaging an impressive 15.7 yards per catch, the highest in his three years at school. Mitchell ran a 4.34 in the 40-yard dash and nearly jumped out of Lucas Oil with a 39.5″ vertical. So why’d he fall so far?
Adonai Mitchell had been trending down on NFL teams’ draft boards for a while now, with sources citing “character issues”.
“[His] interviews were not great,” NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport explained of Mitchell. “[He was] a little disinterested, was not always responsive. Those visits didn’t go as well as people wanted. Teams didn’t get a great feel for him, which lets you know why he slid where he did.”
Although Rapoport doesn’t know how big those red flags truly are, they were apparently big enough to send Mitchell to the middle-bottom of the second round, which will affect his contract and his pay. If the Colts are right, they might’ve just gotten the steal of the draft. An explosive offensive weapon for Anthony Richardson to utilize in what is essentially a year which he must prove himself.
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Richardson showed signs of being the team’s true franchise quarterback in 2023 but a season-ending injury curtailed that talk relatively briskly. Ballard refused to take the belief that Mitchell fell as far as he did for legitimate reasons. The eighth-year general manager took his new draft pick’s side vehemently.
“I read some of the bull— that was said on TV,” Ballard said. “Our typical league– unnamed sources, bad interview, that’s such bull—. It just f—ing is. It’s bull—.
Put your name on it. We tear these young men down. These are 21-22-year-old men. If people out there can tell me they’re perfect in their lives, it’s crap. It’s crap. This is a good kid and for those repots to come out– I said it last year. It’s bull—.”
Ballard continued to go to bat for Adonai Mitchell in his conference explaining Mitchell’s strengths, “I think he can kind of do it all. He’s got work to do, but he is really skilled. He’s a really skilled athlete. Like any wideout that comes in this league, it’s an adjustment period because the coverage is tighter. You have to be better and more detailed on your route running. He’s extremely skilled – there’s not a lot he can’t do athletically. We’ll see how he comes along.”
AD Mitchell has been a player that has shown in big moments. Ballard doesn’t know exactly why other than the fact that it’s natural.
“I don’t know it it’s innate,” Ballard said about Mitchell’s ability under pressure. “I know it’s – the good thing is that he’s proven he can do it in big moments. I don’t know if it’s innate, I don’t know. That’s a good question – I don’t have an answer for that, I wish I did. If I did, I’d sell it but I don’t have an answer for that.”
Another reason for Mitchell’s drop could be attributed to his performance at the combine. “He blew that 40 out, which didn’t surprise me,” one veteran scout said. “But then his position workout might have been the worst I’ve seen by a top receiver. He was falling over. He dropped balls. He had to keep redoing. It seemed as if he didn’t know how to run routes. He just seemed out of it.”
“He was very linear, very straight line,” another scout said watching Adonai Mitchell at the combine. “Which surprised me, because in my limited exposure, for a fast guy, I thought he could actually bend and get in and out of his cuts.
After running fast, the position stuff didn’t match. It wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t fatal. But it definitely raised some alerts with me. He didn’t have a great combine.”
A SBNation article listed another, underlying reason for Mitchell’s tumble, “when his blood sugar’s off, he’s rude, he’s abrasive, he doesn’t pay attention in meetings. It’s why you get really, really sh–y character reports coming out of Georgia and Texas. But when his stuff is normal, and they get him normal by lunch time, he’s out at practice high energy, best practice player, loves football.”
Either way, the goal is to not to look too deep into the trivial pre-draft qualms. CJ Stroud last year had a similar issue, while he didn’t drop nearly as far, instead simply to the second-overall slot, he had severe alarm bells from NFL teams due to his poor S2 Cognition Test. Fast-forward a year later, and Stroud has quickly turned into one of the best rising-stars in the league. Could Mitchell do the same? Perhaps.
Pro Football Focus graded Mitchell at a 71.9, starter level material at the NFL level. His NFL Draft profile rated him at a 6.35– “will eventually be a plus starter”. The athleticism is all there for Adonai Mitchell, and Ballard believed him enough to take a shot.
