This is what we’ve been waiting for, fantasy football enthusiasts. The NFL Draft is under way, and we finally get to see where the rookie prospects are going to launch their professional careers. And NFL Draft landing spots allow us to start to zero in on fantasy football and dynasty rookie draft pick values. Here, we’ll break down WR Marvin Harrison Jr. and his fit with the Arizona Cardinals.
Throughout the draft, we’ll take a closer look at fantasy-relevant prospects, giving you an overview of their strengths and weaknesses, and assessing their fantasy value in both redraft and dynasty formats.
Let’s dig in.
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- 2024 NFL Draft Guide
Fantasy Football Rookie Draft Outlook
Fitz’s Fantasy Football Outlook
The Arizona Cardinals hope they’ve landed an alpha wide receiver with their selection of Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. with the fourth overall pick of the first round.
The son of former Colts great Marvin Harrison is even bigger than his Hall of Fame dad. Harrison Sr. was 6-0 and played at around 180 pounds. Harrison Jr. is an imposing 6-3, 209-pound physical specimen. The younger Harrison may not be in his dad’s class as a route-runner, but Junior is good and improving in that area. FantasyPros NFL Draft and college football analyst Thor Nystrom writes that Harrison Jr. is “precise and calculated into the route break, and utterly violent out of them, exposing back to top speed quickly.”
Where Harrison Jr. shines brightest is at the catch point. He has a big catch radius, impressive leaping ability and extraordinary body control. Harrison Jr. is a faithful user of a modified JUGS machine, and it shows — he has great hands.
Despite seeing frequent double-teams and getting less-than-stellar quarterbacking in his final college season, Harrison Jr. had 67 catches for 1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns in 12 games. That came on the heels of a 1,263-yard, 14-TD season as a sophomore.
It’s hard to find weaknesses in Harrison’s game, but he hasn’t been a particularly affective tackle-breaker after the catch.
Harrison immediately becomes the No. 1 wide receiver in Arizona. Trey McBride is a high-quality tight end, but the Cardinals’ other receivers — Michael Wilson, Greg Dortch, Chris Moore and others — don’t provide a lot of target competition. It’s easy to see a path to 130-140 targets for Harrison as a rookie. He’ll also get to work with a solid quarterback in Kyler Murray.
Harrison has a FantasyPros Expert Consensus Ranking of WR18. He’s being drafted aggressively in Underdog best-ball drafts, with an ADP of WR11. I’m bullish on Harrison as a redraft value and have him ranked WR9. First-round wide receivers tend to be good fantasy values, as we’ve recently seen with players such as Justin Jefferson (rookie ADP: WR49) and Ja’Marr Chase (rookie ADP: WR27). The market is higher on Harrison Jr. than it was on Jefferson and Chase, and deservedly so. I think Harrison Jr. has the same sort of fantasy ceiling as those established stars.
In dynasty, Harrison is the consensus WR1. I concur and would take him first overall in 1QB dynasty rookie drafts and second overall in superflex rookie drafts, behind only QB Caleb Williams. Harrison Jr. profiles as a foundational cornerstone for a dynasty franchise.
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Thor’s NFL Draft Profile & Player Comp
1. Marvin Harrison Jr. | Ohio State
6032/209 | RAS: N/A
Comp: A.J. Green
Marvin Harrison Sr. made the Hall of Fame as a sub-180-pound receiver. He had one path – and one path only – to reach Canton: Become a route-running virtuoso. So that’s what he did.
Marvin Sr. named his son Marvin Jr., whose adolescence was an education in dad’s wide-receiver-book-of-secrets knowledge. But as Marvin Jr. matured, he grew into a physical package his father could only dream about – tall, well-built, long-armed… with track speed. The prototype.
Receiving prospects that are this physically talented have a tendency to be raw at some of the game’s finer points when they enter the NFL. For the same reason dominant youth fireballers often need to learn off-speed pitches when they enter minor league baseball: They didn’t need more than a fastball to dominate youth competition.
But Marvin Jr. didn’t really have a choice in that matter, did he? Sixteen years after his father retired from the NFL, Marvin Jr. enters the pros as a rare commodity, indeed: A refined prodigy. He looks like NFL scouts collectively built him in Madden, and he plays like he’s been getting tips from a Hall of Fame personal tutor since birth.
Start with the release package. Marvin Sr. had to learn to beat bigger, longer corners off the line. Because if he couldn’t dictate the terms of the dance, he couldn’t win. Harrison Jr. is sudden and precise with his footwork, with a new look every snap, making it difficult to stay square without overcompensating. And you aren’t impeding his progress unless you have a firm base under you with hands on him.
Harrison Jr. enters his route and quickly deciphers the coverage’s intentions. This area got a lot of work the past couple of years – the conventional coverage looks that he was getting early on as a sophomore quickly morphed into opposing defensive coordinators throwing the kitchen sink at him.
As he got into his third and final season, Harrison Jr. was seeing double-teams at a rate that – watching the Buckeyes live in the fall – I couldn’t remember seeing at the Power 5 level. But that’s anecdotal. Reception Perception’s Matt Harmon quantified it: Per Harmon’s charting, Harrison Jr. broke the previous double-team-rate record, while shattering the record for success rate when doubled. Basically, this was giving a young Tiger Woods progressively higher handicaps until they became astronomical only to watch him win every competition anyway. If that’s not telling, I don’t know what is.
Why did opposing coordinators begin doing this? Because Harrison Jr. was in the 100th percentile in PFF receiving grade against single-man coverage over the past two seasons. Leaving one corner on Harrison Jr. in man coverage was pushing him into a shark tank wearing a steak suit.
Keep in mind: Last year, Harrison Jr. did all this working with Kyle McCord, who was banished to Syracuse via the transfer portal after the season. For all his faults, McCord knew where his bread was buttered. It was in his statistical best interest to force targets MHJ’s way, disadvantageous or not.
Last year, Harrison Jr. had the highest target share – 33.3% – in college football. That’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is Harrison Jr.’s target share spiked to 40% against man coverage. Let me reiterate for the NFL defensive coordinators in our reading audience: You do not leave a man one-on-one against Marvin Harrison Jr. in man coverage.
Harrison Jr. throttles speed at will – his most impressive attribute as a route-runner. It’s very difficult to get a bead on his intentions because of this. He’s precise and calculated into the route break, and utterly violent out of them, exposing back to top speed quickly.
Harrison Jr. is a downfield killer – top five last year in both deep catches and deep yards – whose size/speed combination, body control and leaping ability, for me, as a lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan, could at times evoke a certain Super Freak receiver from my boyhood that I cannot ever see myself comping a prospect to. But you can’t really play off him due to Harrison Jr.’s ability to consistently throw open passing windows in the intermediate range.
Harrison has a huge catch radius, and he’s reliable with anything you can get near it, posting a strong 6.1% career drop rate over heavy volume at Ohio State. Reported to be maniacal with a modified jugs machine at home during his free time, the hand work shows.
My biggest nitpick about his game is he doesn’t really break tackles. It’s important to note, however, that this does not mean that he isn’t good after the catch. Harrison Jr. seamlessly transitions from receiver to runner and has very good in-the-moment spatial awareness. He piles up comparable YAC to top prospects more skilled at evading or breaking tackles because of this.
For instance, last year, Harrison Jr. had 44% and 54%, respectively, of the receiving yards after contact that Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze did. And yet Harrison Jr. had 0.8 more YAC/R than Odunze, and only 0.2 less than Nabers. Harrison Jr. isn’t flashy in this area – only effective.
Harrison Jr. skipped the draft process. I don’t care. I’ll go further: I would have advised him to do the exact same. His film speaks for itself, as does the rest of it. Harrison Jr. burst to the top of the nation’s best WR room and posted two enormous seasons before declaring for the NFL. He’s the prototype physically and athletically, with genetics and pedigree in spades. For receiver prospects, it’s rare to see floor/ceiling combinations this high.
Check out more NFL Draft profiles and player comps from Thor in our 2024 NFL Draft Guide
Dynasty Rookie Draft Rankings
Our analysts provide their latest rookie draft rankings below. And also check out our expert consensus dynasty rookie draft rankings!
More Dynasty Rookie Draft Advice
- DBro’s Dynasty Rookie Draft Primers
- DBro’s Top 50 Rankings & Player Notes
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