NFL mock draft: 3 teams that should be salivating over Andrei Iosivas

The NFL Draft is less than two months away, and one mid-round wide receiver prospect, Andrei Iosivas, has quietly snuck up on several teams’ radars.

Princeton Tigers’ Andrei Iosivas has been compared to Green Bay Packers’ Christian Watson for good reason: he’s one of the fastest prospects in the 2023 draft class, and his explosiveness makes him a deadly big-play machine ready to go off at any time.

The Hawaii native was ranked 15th in Bruce Feldman’s “2022 College Football Freaks List,” and his physical measurables and impressive stats make him a worthy mid-round pick for any NFL franchise. First-team All-Ivy. League-leading 66 catches, 943 receiving yards, and seven touchdowns. Ranked sixth all-time in receiving yards and touchdown catches at Princeton.

Compared to last year’s starry wide receiver class, this year’s class doesn’t have a clear-cut No. 1 prospect. Each team’s coaches will have to work that much harder to search for their own diamond in the rough, and Iosivas could be an absolute steal in the third, fourth, or fifth rounds.

Princeton isn’t exactly known as a football powerhouse, but don’t judge a prospect solely on his college — this hoity-toity Ivy League boy can go farther than his peers if he lands on the right team.

Here are three teams who should be salivating over Andrei Iosivas in 2023.

NFL mock draft: Detroit Lions sneak in another speedy wideout in Andrei Iosivas

If the whole Jameson Williams thing doesn’t work out, the Detroit Lions have their fallback plan in Andrei Iosivas.

The Lions are expected to use their early picks on more pressing areas of need like their defensive line and secondary, and it’s very reasonable to imagine Iosivas falling down to them at the fifth or sixth round.

In 2022, Detroit made a gutsy move and traded up for Williams in the first round, securing the team’s potential wideout of the future. The Lions GM’s recent comments about Williams nonetheless signify mild cause for concern, and Williams, who recovered from a torn ACL in time to play in a handful of games last season, isn’t totally out of the woods yet.

Detroit already has its cornerstone pieces in Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and a duo of talented running backs. Williams should be able to break into the starting rotation in 2023, but if he suffers any kind of injury-related setback, Iosivas could get his chance to shine.

Insurance is the name of the game here. Detroit may have too much riding on Williams’ development these next few years and would do well to pad its receiving corps to supplement Goff in this wildly optimistic era for the franchise.

The most obvious similarity between Williams and Iosivas is their hair-raising speed, as Iosivas was a former track athlete should excel in the catch-and-run department. Williams has higher upside, for sure, yet a close carbon copy like Iosivas isn’t a bad Plan B.