Antoine
Green.
Antoine
Green.
North Carolina· 6'2"· 199 lb· 4.47s 40
"Late-blooming boundary speed with real catch-point length, packaged inside a single season of production - the kind of one-trait bet that only makes sense when the pick itself costs you nothing."Pre-draft read
A tall, long-striding perimeter X who won most of his snaps attacking the top of the coverage from a reduced split. Green builds speed in three steps, stacks corners cleanly, and tracks the deep ball over either shoulder with quiet hands away from his frame. The release package is simple but functional: a hop-step off the line, then a hard vertical stem that forces the corner to bail.
The complementary trait is boundary ball skill on fades and back-shoulders, where his 6-2 frame and late hand timing win without much separation. He is a willing rather than sturdy stalk blocker. The athleticism is good, not rare, but the signature is clear: one-on-one deep shots turn into explosive plays more often than his target volume suggests.
Play-action vertical offense that isolates an X receiver to the boundary and takes two or three shot plays per game off deep overs and fades.
Year 1: fifth receiver and core special-teamer who plays vertical-only packages. Ceiling: WR3 field-stretcher on a team with two established separators.
Timing quick-game offense built on option routes and leverage-based breaks from the slot, where his stem-heavy release toolbox stalls.
His value is entirely tied to snaps where the ball can travel past 20 yards.
Antoine Green NFL Draft Tape | North Carolina WR
Full draft-tape cut: vertical stems, back-shoulder wins and the sideline tracking that defined his 2022 season.
Antoine Green 2022 Regular Season Highlights
Fifth-year season reel showing the 18.6 yards-per-catch profile and the boundary release package.
UNC WR Antoine Green Provides Huge Plays For The Heels
Chunk-play compilation highlighting how he stacked corners and finished over the top.
Green is a boundary vertical receiver whose football identity is built on speed and length, not on route volume. He plays with a long stride that eats cushion quickly, tracks the ball naturally down the sideline, and offers the frame to work above a corner at the catch point. What he is not is a full-tree separator: most of his production comes off vertical stems, comebacks off the same stem, and the occasional slant.
The production curve is late and thin. He was a rotational piece for three seasons in Chapel Hill before breaking out as a fifth-year senior, and even then his season ended early. The film shows real explosive-play equity paired with a body of work small enough that a scout has to project rather than confirm. Durability and drop concentration were the two flags teams kept circling, and neither was resolved by a clean but unspectacular workout.
Boards had him as a Day 3 flyer with a defined role, not as a developmental starter. The Lions took him with the last pick they owned, betting that a big vertical target could earn a fifth or sixth receiver job on special teams while the deep speed simmered. At pick 219 that is exactly the right kind of swing: cheap, upside-tied, and nothing lost if the profile never widens.
- 01
Vertical stacking
Long strider who closes cushion in three steps and gets on top of boundary corners without needing a heavy release package.
- 02
Deep ball tracking
Locates and adjusts over either shoulder late, with quiet hands that let him finish the fade without decelerating into the catch.
- 03
Catch-point length
Uses a 6-2 frame and late hand timing to win contested boundary throws on the days separation never arrives.
- 04
Explosive-play equity
His 2022 season averaged 18.6 yards per catch on 43 receptions, the kind of chunk rate that survives inside a depth role.
- 05
Role clarity
Knows exactly what he is: a field-stretching X whose alignment, split and job description never need to be argued about.
- 01
Thin route tree
Almost all of his college value came off vertical stems; the intermediate and option-route game barely appears on his tape.
- 02
Late producer
One real season of volume as a fifth-year senior means a projection built on very little confirming evidence behind it.
- 03
Availability
He never crossed 13 games in a college season, a flag that eventually came to define his professional career as well.
- 04
Blocking sustain
Willing stalk blocker who screens defenders rather than finishing them, which caps his value in run-heavy personnel groups.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.47sp50
- Vertical
- 33.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 123inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.99sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.27sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | North Carolina | — | 4 | 45 | 0 |
| 2019 | North Carolina | — | 8 | 217 | 2 |
| 2020 | North Carolina | — | 4 | 38 | 1 |
| 2021 | North Carolina | — | 31 | 612 | 5 |
| 2022 | North Carolina | — | 43 | 798 | 7 |
| Career | — | — | 90 | 1710 | 15 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Fifth receiver who lives on the roster bubble, contributes on teams, and produces in bursts when injuries open vertical snaps.
Optimistic ceiling of a long-framed WR3 who earns a full-time role through blocking effort and boundary reliability rather than separation.
Practice-squad body with a defined trait and no path to volume once the top of the room is settled.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
A seventh-round vertical flyer whose NFL sample never grew past rookie-year depth snaps before a head injury took the 2024 season and, with it, his time in Detroit.
Detroit kept Green on the 53 as a rookie and used him almost exclusively as a depth body: nine games, two targets, one catch for two yards, and no meaningful role in a receiver room that already had a clear top three. He was never asked to expand his route tree at the NFL level, and the special-teams reps never turned into a job. Then the 2024 preseason opener ended everything - a concussion put him on injured reserve and cost him the entire season. He never returned to the field for Detroit and was waived with a failed-physical designation in April 2025 after the team's draft class arrived.
In hindsight this is less an evaluation miss than a health outcome. The pre-draft call was honest: a one-year producer with vertical juice, a thin tree, and a narrow path to snaps. Everything that was supposed to be hard about his projection stayed hard, and he never got the runway to prove the deep speed translated. If there is a lesson, it is that a seventh-round receiver whose value is tied to one trait needs volume and health to bank any equity, and Green got neither. The pick cost Detroit nothing, which is the entire point of picking at 219.