The NFL draft kicks off Thursday and a handful of Trojans are likely to become the next in a long line of USC draftees.

With USC retaining most of its key players from last season, only about four or five Trojans seem likely to be drafted over the coming days and it’s likely that USC will be represented among the selections on all three days of the draft.

In preparation, we’ve put together a preview of USC’s potential draftees, detailing their skill sets and potential fits at the NFL level. For each player, we’ve also included their placements in three updated 7-round mock drafts from PFF, ESPN (Matt Miller), and NFL.com (Chad Reuter) for reference, as well as their Relative Athletic Score cards.

For the unacquainted, RAS is a metric devised by Kent Lee Platte to contextualize players’ physical measurements and athletic testing scores against all other draft-eligible players at their position over the past few decades. For each individual test or measurement, you’ll see a score ranging from 0-10.00. A score of 0-4.99 signifies a subpar result, 5.00-7.99 indicates an average to above average score, and 8.00+ indicates elite results. The overall RAS score at the top of the card shows where the player scores as a whole compared to all eligible draftees at their position over time on the same grading scale as an aggregate of the sub-scores.

The receiver position has been one of the richest in the early rounds of recent drafts, with multiple, clear-cut, first-option wide-outs coming off the board early over the past 5 five or so years. This year’s class is something of an exception, lacking true No. 1 options who check all the boxes of size, athleticism, route running and hands. As a result, it appears unlikely that any receivers will be selected in the first 10 picks. With that said, there are plenty of highly-talented pass catchers who are likely to hear their names called over the course of the first round. Among them is Jordan Addison, the former Biletnikoff Award winner at Pitt who turned in another strong season after transferring to USC in 2022, catching 59 balls for 875 yards and 8 scores in an injury-shortened campaign.

Addison has long been billed as one of the top receivers in this class, and the possibility of him being the first player at his position remains open, although it seems more and more likely that Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba will secure that distinction. Addison has plenty going for him that’s likely to translate to the NFL level, starting with his fantastic route running skills.

He’s one of the most fluid movers you’ll see at the receiver position, leaving no wasted motion on the table and showing remarkable slickness both through the stems of his routes and the break points in order to create separation. He’s mastered the feel for timing in his routes to a degree that few receivers at the college level ever do, setting up defenders through the route with his footwork and head movements in order to generate consistent separation. As a result, Addison gets open with frequency, often with yards between him and the nearest defender at the catch point. As a catcher of the football, he shows strong, smooth hands, plucking the ball out of the air securely and without needing to use his body. However, he’s still prone to the occasional concentration drop and struggles to win in contested catch situations when he has to beat the defender to the apex of the catch point.

That leads us into the biggest weakness in Addison’s game and the biggest question mark he’ll have to address in the NFL: his size. Though 5-foot-11 is a perfectly normal height for a wide receiver in the league, it’s Addison’s slight frame at that height that poses problems when projecting him to the NFL. At 171 pounds, Addison is noticeably stringy in build, and few successful receivers in the league have ever shared that body type. Despite his success at the college level, problems caused by his slight build were evident, including difficulties in contested catch situations and in beating press coverage. The latter of those concerns will be a significant issue in the NFL, where receivers have to adjust to playing through frequent pressing at the line of scrimmage by bigger and faster corners.

As a result, it seems likely that many teams may view him as a pure slot receiver in order to keep him away from press-corners on the boundary. As an athlete, Addison turned in solid but unspectacular testing results. He’s certainly good enough of an athlete to perform well at the NFL level, but he’s not going to win on the back of his athleticism as many other players might. That shouldn’t be much of a concern for Addison, though, as his game is built on superb technical skill and savvy. Despite his limitations, he should be able to thrive at the NFL level as a complementary receiver thanks to his ability to consistently generate separation. Separation is the No. 1 trait teams at the next level want from the guys in their receiver room, and you can argue that no one in this class creates it the way Addison does.

He’ll be a fit for any number of teams on the back end of the first round looking for receiving firepower -- likely teams who have a WR1 type already on the roster. The New York Giants (25), Baltimore Ravens (22), LA Chargers (21), Minnesota Vikings (23) and Seattle Seahawks (20) all strike me as potential fits.

Mock Draft Placements:

NFL.com: Round 1, Pick 20 (Trade) to the Buffalo Bills

PFF: Round 1, Pick 23 to the Minnesota Vikings

ESPN: Round 1, Pick 31 to the Kansas City Chiefs