If ever a receiving prospect seemed to be laboratory-built for fulfillment within the NFL, it’s Marvin Harrison Jr. He arrives within the league as an uncommonly polished route-runner coming off consecutive 1,200-yard seasons at Ohio State.
Harrison has perfect dimension (6-foot-3), glorious palms, suddenness and separation potential. He excels in contested conditions, but additionally excels at creating uncontested conditions.
Over the previous two seasons, Harrison has cooked the most effective defenses in school soccer — together with Georgia in 2022 (5-106-2) and Michigan final 12 months (5-118-1) — so there are zero quality-of-competition considerations to be discovered on the scouting report.
Harrison has additionally averaged better than 3.0 yards per route run in back-to-back years, which is outrageous. Mainly, he’s a participant with no evident weaknesses and an abundance of apparent strengths. He was all the time going to be the highest fantasy choice within the 2024 rookie class, no matter touchdown spot.
This can be a case wherein each movie and stat nerds agree on the greatness of the participant, too. Good luck discovering any critical MHJ doubters. He’s clearly an enormous expertise.
As probably the most bullish ranker on Harrison throughout the Yahoo fantasy workforce, it falls to me to make the case that he can, in truth, ship first-round fantasy worth in his first professional season. I’m actually not about to declare that Harrison is more likely to end as the general WR1, however I do truly suppose it’s inside his vary of potential outcomes. Maybe extra importantly, there’s little or no probability {that a} wholesome MHJ will end exterior the highest 20 receivers in 2024.
Along with being the pre-draft consensus No. 1 receiver on this 12 months’s rookie class — and the consensus high receiver in school soccer the season earlier than — Harrison additionally occurred to search out his method to the most effective attainable locations for instant manufacturing. He’s now paired with two-time Professional Bowl quarterback Kyler Murray in an Arizona offense with an enormous variety of vacated targets. Marquise Brown and Rondale Moore relocated within the offseason, leaving over 160 alternatives up for grabs.
Should you can’t see a path to a monster fantasy season for MHJ as a rookie, then you definitely actually have an unlucky lack of creativeness. You additionally occur to be dismissing the current historical past of his place. In 4 of the previous 5 seasons, courting again to A.J. Brown’s glorious 2019, at the very least one rookie broad receiver has delivered a top-10 positional end. Harrison is a good guess to make it 5 in six years.
To the credit score of fantasy drafters all over the place, MHJ isn’t falling far when it comes to early ADP. He’s usually touchdown within the late second spherical, within the neighborhood of Davante Adams, Chris Olave and Drake London.
Personally, I wouldn’t increase an eyebrow for those who needed to draft him within the late first spherical in full PPR. Once more, Harrison is the most effective receiving prospect of the previous two years, and he discovered his method to a probably wealthy offensive setting. He’s 150-plus targets as a rookie, with a practical probability to satisfy or exceed his current collegiate manufacturing. It received’t be a lot of a shock if he delivers a 90-1,300-10 season, assuming good well being.
We’re well beyond the period wherein rookie receivers had been computerized fades. Should you’re nonetheless drafting that approach in 2024, you’re closing the door on a gaggle of probably difference-makers.
