There are a handful of wide receivers who could potentially hear their name called on day one of the 2026 NFL Draft—and Texas A&M WR KC Concepcion is one of them. While no prospect is perfect, Concepcion possesses the sort of twitchy route-running and after-the-catch goodness to get any ball knower excited about his upside at the professional level.

Today, we'll get to know Concepcion a bit better by breaking down five cool things about the 21-year-old talent, including:

• How we got here: From three-star to All-American
• Biggest strengths: Can create separation in a phone booth
• Three cool stats: THE running back, y'all?
• Causes for concern: Catching the football is kind of important
• Fun facts: Chef KC

And of course, we'll finish things off with several provocative comps that will hopefully get the people going.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

NFL Draft Scouting Report For WR KC Concepcion

How We Got Here: From Three-Star To All-American

Concepcion was born in Rochester, New York, before moving to Charlotte, North Carolina. Athletic success followed, although we aren't exactly talking about a household name here: 247 ranked Concepcion as a three-star recruit and managed to rank 96 wide receivers ahead of him in the 2023 class.

Nevertheless, KC chose to attend NC State over the likes of North Carolina, Duke, and Florida State, among others. He immediately burst onto the scene and managed to largely work as the engine of the Wolf Pack's offense during his two seasons in Raleigh, displaying enough ability to be ranked as a four-star transfer (fifth-best WR) in the 2025 transfer class.

This led to Concepcion taking his talents to Texas A&M, where he really cemented himself as an NFL-ready talent.

• 6'0", 196 pounds
• 2025: 61 receptions-919 yards-9 TD receiving, 10 carries-75 yards-1 TD rushing, 2 punt return TD.
• 2025: First-team AP All-American (All-Purpose), First-Team All-SEC WR, Paul Gornung Award winner (nation's most versatile player)
• 2024: 53-460-6 receiving, 19-36-2 rushing
• 2023: 71-839-10 receiving, 410-32-0 rushing. Freshman All-American, ACC Rookie of the Year.
• Mock draft projection: No. 21 to the Steelers

Concepcion's successful three-year collegiate career was made possible by displaying the sort of traits that will certainly appeal to scouts and NFL decision-makers alike.

KC Concepcion's Biggest Strengths: Can create separation in a phone booth

Three strengths of Concepcion that are evident after grinding the ole' film:

Route-running ability is borderline erotic: This is Concepcion's superpower. He possesses instant acceleration off the line of scrimmage as well as lightning quickness to get in and out of breaks and create separation in all areas of the field. The latter trait has led many to pull out Zay Flowers comps. While Concepcion won't necessarily "wow" you with his top-end speed, defensive backs still seemed consistently threatened thanks to this dynamic agility. Now, a lot of KC's production did indeed come out of the slot and around the line of scrimmage, but his quickness off the ball made him a nemesis against any corner brave enough to attempt to press him. Jordyn Tyson is the only other WR in this class I've studied thus far with the same level of twitch in his route running.

Proved capable of winning against the best corners college football had to offer: Specifically, Concepcion put wins against Notre Dame CB Leonard Moore, LSU CB Mansoor Delane and South Carolina CB Brandon Cisse on tape. Not to suggest that Concepcion beat all three like a drum for 60 minutes, but even getting some one-on-ones against these future first-rounders is impressive.

Playmaker with the football in his hands: Whether as a receiver, rusher or returner, the First-team All-American "All-purpose" winner consistently proved to be tough to get to the ground once he got the ball. It was particularly impressive to see how often Concepcion fought through contact for an extra few yards throughout his career—this is a rare trait for a sub-200-pound receiver.

Three Cool KC Concepcion Stats: THE running back, y'all?

Three more cool stats and facts about Concepcion that line up with what you'll see from watching him play:

The QB play wasn't always great for Concepcion: This was especially evident both in 2024 at NC State and 2025 at Texas A&M. The former campaign featured freshman Brennan Armstrong, and the latter sophomore Marcel Reed. We can partially measure this with "unrealized air yards", which is a nerdy metric that measures the total distance of a receiver's incomplete targets. Overall, Concepcion had the 10th-most unrealized air yards among Power Four players in 2025. There were some ROUGH misses on tape (see where he is below).

Legit experience as a running back: Concepcion played quite a bit of true running back as a freshman year at NC State—and looked good doing it! His dual-threat production actually brings out a pretty fun comp list if, you know, you ignore the duds. Anyway: 33 college WRs and RBs racked up 2,000+ receiving yards and 400+ rushing yards from 2000-2025, and among them are:

• Antonio Brown
• TY Hilton
• Wes Welker
• Tavon Austin
• Mohamed Sanu
• Jeremy Maclin
• Wa'Dale Robinson
• Khalil Shakir
• Tyler Boyd
• Andddd KC Concepcion!

Hell yeah, brother (here's the full list).

Slow motion for me: Concepcion led top-23 WR prospects (via PFF's big board) in career targets (76), receptions (55) and receiving TDs (7) after being in motion before the snap. In fact, Germie Bernard is the only other guy even close. He also posted an elite targets per route run rate (41.3%, 3rd) and a solid yards per route run mark (2.24, 12th). You hear that, Mike McDaniel?

Causes For Concern With KC Concepcion: Catching the football is kind of important

Of course, as is the case with any prospect, there are some potential red-ish flags to concern yourself with here.

We know he's fast … but how fast?: Concepcion's quickness pops immediately with everything he does, although his decision not to run the 40-yard dash at the combine adds some level of mystery to his top-end speed. Considering we aren't dealing with an overly big receiver here, it could be tougher for him to separate vertically at the next level if he's more of a 4.5 guy in reality.

Injury: Concepcion underwent a knee scope in March that was described as "routine and preventative." He's expected to be 100% for rookie minicamp and looked perfectly fine in a recent workout video. That said, still not exactly ideal ahead of the draft.

Ball security, job security: This is probably the biggest concern here, although I generally believe drops to be more of a side effect of someone getting open enough to earn a bunch of targets—and thus drop a lot of passes. Still, even accounting for the drops on a per-target basis leaves Concepcion with a rough career 6.5% drop rate. Many appeared to be more of the concentration variety, but either way, this undoubtedly needs to be cleaned up at the next level:

Fun KC Concepcion Facts: Chef Concepcion

Four facts of the fun variety about Concepcion:

• Credits his speed to his parents: Dad played football at the University of Buffalo as well as some Arena Ball, while his Mom also ran track.
• Idols growing up: Mom and Russell Wilson!
• Elite teammate to the point that he consistently cooked for his teammates at Texas A&M! The menu's highlights featured Mac n Cheese and Yams.
• Googling Concepcion is giving me "RB Chris Evans" nightmare flashbacks because there's a prominent Philippine actress and singer also named KC Concepcion.

KC Concepcion Player Comps

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for: My favorite comps for Concepcion:

• If Jordan Addison were a good driver
• Nelson Agholor (complimentary)
• Gen-Z Emmanuel Sanders
• Andrew from Whiplash

Best of luck to Concepcion on his NFL journey, and thank you all for reading!

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