Marvin Harrison Jr: Is He the Next Elite WR?

Photo: USA Today Sports

Marvin Harrison Jr. leaves Ohio St. fifth in career receptions, fourth in career yards, and third in career touchdowns. He follows Terry Glenn as the second Ohio St. receiver to win the Biletnikoff Award. Glenn won his award in 1995. A senior receiver from Syracuse who set his school record for single-season receiving yards was among the players he beat out for that award: Marvin Harrison.

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Peyton Manning and the elder Harrison have intertwined careers. However, Manning arrived in Harrison’s third year. His first Colts quarterback would come to know his son well. Jim Harbaugh would go on to lead his Michigan Wolverines over the Buckeyes each of Harrison’s three seasons, including his final collegiate game. The Harrison and Harbaugh families narrowly missed a reunion, as the Cardinals picked Harrison just before Harbaugh’s Chargers at fourth overall. Harrison became the highest-drafted receiver in Ohio St. history. Now he gets his opportunity as the focal point of the Cardinals offense. 

The Cardinals need him badly. 

Arizona’s Offensive Environment

The Cardinals added Zay Jones three weeks after the NFL draft was complete. He nearly doubled their receiving room’s career statistics. Michael Wilson, Greg Dortch, Zach Pascal, and Chris Moore had combined for 424 career receptions, 5,094 yards, and 31 touchdowns. Jones brings a 287-3,028-18 career line. 

Yikes.

More interesting than who occupies the receiver room is the personnel transition. When coach Jonathan Gannon and offensive coordinator Drew Petzing took over, they dealt with remnants of Kliff Kingsbury’s Air Raid system. Kingsbury’s offense played at least three receivers on 72% of snaps in 2021. His 13% usage of four-receiver sets was nearly double the second-place Jets. Meanwhile, Petzing served as tight ends coach, then quarterbacks coach in a Cleveland offense that was the opposite. Only the Brian Flores era Dolphins played 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three receivers) less than the Browns’ 45%. The Browns' 17% of snaps with three tight ends were more than double any other team. 

The Cardinals made a shift in this direction during the 2024 offseason. Time for Bully Ball. Rondale Moore is out, a player tailor-made for an Air Raid attack. Meanwhile, the team spent a Day 2 selection on tight end Illinois’ Tip Reiman. Reiman posted a 9.93 relative athletic score, one of the best all time, after running a 4.64 40 at 271 lbs. He averaged just over one catch per game during his time at Illinois. His job is straightforward: block. 

Tight end Trey McBride is the X factor. His usage shifted dramatically following the midseason release of Zach Ertz. With Ertz in the fold, McBride played almost exclusively inline, with 83% of his snaps coming from that position in Weeks 1 through 5. With Ertz gone, he lined up inside on 53%, taking the other 47% from the slot or out wide. The arrival of Reiman will allow McBride to serve as the starting slot, depending on how much the rookie can handle and how quickly he can get up to speed. That allows the Cardinals to play base 12 personnel. The result of these personnel groupings is two receivers who pace well ahead of the WR3 in the offense in targets. 

The 2022 Browns are an example of what this looks like in action. Their top two receivers, Amari Cooper (132) and Donovan Peoples-Jones (96), represented 45% of their targets. Meanwhile, nominal WR3 David Bell only saw 35, and no other receiver was over 10. There is plenty of room for McBride to thrive still. The Browns’ top three tight ends (David Njoku, Austin Hooper, and Harrison Bryant) combined to average 137 targets from 2020 through 2022. Evan Engram led the NFL in tight end targets in 2023 with 143, and second place T.J. Hockenson was well back at 127. 

The Cardinals should be one of the league leaders in funneling targets to their top two options, Harrison and McBride. Will that pressure be too much for a rookie receiver?

Rookies Have Broken The Model

Quick question: did Jaxon Smith-Njigba have a disappointing rookie season?

By dynasty valuation, he did. He spent most of the 2023 summer valued in the low-teens wide receiver ranks on Keeptradecut.com, peaking at WR10 in August. Now? The site values him at WR25. The success of rookies is no secret. Puka Nacua just broke the NFL rookie receiving record with 1,486 yards. Four rookie receivers have topped 1,400 yards, three of them since 2020, with Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase joining Nacua. The fourth is Bill Groman. Groman had 1,473 yards in 1960 before posting 2,008 yards over the rest of his career. 

Smith-Njigba’s rookie line of 63 receptions, 628 yards, and fourth touchdowns is the perfect lens to illustrate how much perception around rookie production has changed. 

Since 1994, the NFL has drafted a total of 986 wide receivers. In total, 56 (just under 5.7%) of those receivers have topped 60 receptions in their rookie season, seven of which occurred in 2023, six in 2020, and four in 2021. The only other year to top three in a season was a 2014 class that included Odell Beckham Jr, Mike Evans, Jarvis Landry, and Sammy Watkins. 

Smith-Njigba’s 63 receptions would have led all rookies in nine of the last 30 seasons. That reception total was the second most in Seahawks team history by a rookie, trailing Joey Galloway. The landscape has flipped so dramatically that the question is no longer “Can a rookie receiver produce?” but instead, “Do we need to bail out on a player if he does not produce immediately?” The era of the “Year Three Breakout” is gone.

Harrison has as high of an immediate ceiling as any rookie in NFL history. How can his impact raise the tide of the Cardinals’ offense?