Wide receiver is one of the weakest positions on the Las Vegas Raiders’ roster heading into the 2026 NFL draft. So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the Raiders recently completed a Top 30 pre-draft visit with former Texas A&M wideout KC Concepcion, according to ESPN’s Ryan McFadden. Also, it makes even more sense considering Concepcion would be an excellent fit in new head coach Klint Kubiak’s offense.
Kubiak’s West Coast-style playbook favors receivers who can be productive from both the slot and out wide, especially if they can make plays after the catch. As a result, he’s willing to sacrifice size at the position in favor of pass-catchers who have those traits. That pretty much sums up the 6-foot, 196-pound wideout’s game.
Concepcion was almost exclusively a slot receiver at NC State, recording nearly 90 percent of his pass snaps on the inside during the first two years of his college career, per Pro Football Focus. However, his splits were much more balanced at Texas A&M, spending 34.4 percent of his time in the slot and 65.3 percent out wide. Additionally, about half of the former Aggies’ receiving yards came after the catch this past season—440 out of 919 (47.9 percent)—and his 7.2 YAC per reception ranked ninth among SEC wide receivers, per PFF.
With those numbers in mind, let’s flip on the tape and see what Concepcion could bring to Las Vegas.
This first rep is subtle and far from a highlight play, but it helps lay the foundation for what the wideout can do as a route-runner and with the ball in his hands.
Concepcion is lined up in the slot and gets man coverage from the nickel defender. Initially, he runs a curl route and does a good job of getting his shoulders pointed toward the quarterback to sell it, which gets the nickel to bite on the curl and stop his feet. On top of that, Concepcion uses some burst to create separation on the slant route, and he turns upfield immediately after the catch to pick up the first down.
Again, there’s nothing too fancy about this play, but it is a decent example of what Concepcion can do on short routes from the slot.
Building on the previous rep, we’ll get the big splash play everyone is looking for and see another example of how his ability to get north/south after the catch can be impactful.
This time, Concepcion lines up out wide, and Texas A&M calls his number with a tunnel screen against an all-out, Cover 0 blitz from Missouri. Another factor that makes him dangerous with the ball in his hands is that he’s good at finding the optimal running lane.
With the tight end/slot receiver getting beaten inside and the right tackle missing his block, the open path is between the second offensive lineman and the hash marks. So, Concepcion works toward the hashes, finds the lane, and that’s where his ability to get upfield comes into play. He turns a tight corner to avoid running into the other offensive linemen coming to block for him and the pursuing defenders to get back on a linear path.
Finally, the receiver’s speed becomes a factor, as he runs through an arm tackle attempt and leaves everyone in the dust on a 48-yard touchdown off a screen pass.
With the Seattle Seahawks last season, Kubiak dialed up a lot of plays for Jaxon Smith-Njigba, where Smith-Njigba would motion into a bunch or stack formation to create natural picks or rub routes in the passing game. That’s exactly what Texas A&M does with Concepcion here, as I wouldn’t be surprised if they stole this design from Kubiak or the Kyle Shanahan/Sean McVay coaching tree in general.
While this route is primarily schemed open, what Concepcion does well here is releasing wide or outside off the line of scrimmage to set up the defensive back. The receiver’s release forces the DB to work around the other wideout and onto the hash mark, creating the natural pick and space inside so that the slant route is open. Then, the YAC skills take over.
The 2025 consensus All-American gets upfield and doesn’t veer toward the sideline until the defense forces him to. Finally, he makes a nice cut to create a missed tackle from the pursuing safety and keeps fighting for extra yards to create another explosive play.
Concepcion’s ability to make defenders miss is another key factor in why he’s dangerous with the ball in his hands, finishing tied for seventh among SEC receivers with 14 missed tackles forced last season, per PFF.
Moving on to an intermediate route, Concepcion likes to use speed cuts to get in and out of his breaks, versus being a wide receiver who can make 90-degree turns on a dime. That’s fine, but a common issue with receivers who rely on speed cuts is that they drift into coverage out of the break. However, the former Aggie is pretty good at staying flat to avoid that.
Notice how on the dig route above, he stays tight to the nine-yard line and even catches the ball at the 10-yard line. That allows him to get two to three yards of separation against coverage from Notre Dame’s cornerback, who does a decent job of breaking on the route.
Now, the ball is late, and that invites this corner back into the play. But this rep highlights an area of growth for the NC State transfer, as he hauls in the pass with the defender on his hip. With the Wolfpack, he caught seven of 20 (35 percent) contested targets, according to PFF. However, he went 10 for 15 (66.7 percent) this past season.
Concepcion’s size is going to prevent him from coming down with many 50/50 balls in the NFL, but he has the potential to make grabs in traffic after improving that part of his game last fall.
We’re going to see a similar route here, the dig just happens deeper down the field and comes off a cheat motion, another staple of the Kubiak/Shanahan playbook.
The motion creates a one-on-one matchup between Concepcion and South Carolina’s safety, whose primary goal is to prevent anything from going over his head. Knowing that, the wideout does a good job of selling the vertical route and pushing the safety toward the endzone by running straight up the seam initially before hitting the speed cut into the dig route.
With a longer buildup and thus, more downfield momentum, Concepcion does drift a bit this time. However, he flattens it out around the 10-yard line to maintain enough separation from the safety to make a clean catch. Also, drifting actually works to his benefit here because the nickelback, wisely, works for depth to try and help the safety.
Additionally, while I can’t say for certain without knowing the exact play call/design, it looks like Concepcion is reading the safety before making the cut for a sight adjustment on the route. Typically, that means he’ll continue up the seam if it’s a two-high coverage or work across the safety’s face against single-high, as he does here. Why is that important? The Kubiak/Shanahan playbook is littered with sight adjustments in the passing game.
Finally, getting involved in the deep passing attack was another significant area of improvement for the Texas A&M product this past season.
For example, his average depth of target was 8.5 and 6.9 yards during his two respective seasons with the Wolfpack, but that figure ballooned up to 12.3 yards with the Aggies, per PFF. He finished the campaign with eight catches for 240 yards and two touchdowns on passes 20 or more yards past the line of scrimmage, highlighted by the clip above against Notre Dame.
Similar to the previous rep, Concepcion pushes the defensive back toward the endzone with a hard vertical release off the line of scrimmage. That gets the corner to open his hips to turn and run, setting up the double-move on the out-and-up route, as he flips his hips 180 degrees when the receiver breaks toward the sideline. However, Concepcion then turns up the field, effectively putting the corner in a blender to win on the deep route.
Granted, I do think Concepcion can do a better job of selling the out route by getting his shoulders pointed toward the sideline. But it works, and he tracks the ball in the air well, adjusting to the underthrow and going up to get the ball for another explosive play.
The biggest issue with Concepcion’s game is his hands. PFF had him on the hook for seven drops at a 10.3 percent clip last season, which were tied for the second-most and the eighth-worst rate among SEC wide receivers. Additionally, he had 19 drops at 9.3 percent over his three-year college career. Obviously, that needs to be cleaned up at the next level.
However, it’s easy to see why the Raiders are interested in the NC State/Texas A&M product as he’d be a great fit in Kubiak’s offense. The question is, will he be available at pick 36? As of March 26, NFL Mock Draft Database’s consensus big board has him ranked 31st in this year’s draft class. So, Las Vegas might have to trade into the backend of the first round to get Concepcion.
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